Displaying items by tag: liu yiqian

Liu Yiqian, a former taxi driver turned billionaire art collector, confirmed on Tuesday that he was the buyer of the painting of a nude woman by Amedeo Modigliani that sold for $170.4 million at Christie’s New York on Monday night.

Speaking by telephone from Shanghai, the Chinese collector said he planned to bring the work back to the city, where he and his wife have two private museums.

Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian is known to set record prices at art auctions worldwide. At a Sotheby’s sale in Hong Kong on Tuesday, the Shanghai-based Liu proved himself once again.

This time, he bought a Southern Song dynasty-era (1127-1279) vase for 113.9 million Hong Kong dollars ($ 14.7 million). The price is one of the highest ever paid at an auction for a ceramic vase of that period. The crackled bluish-green artifact is part of the Guan Yao, or official ware created for the imperial court of that time.

Of all the billionaires that come and go on the Forbes China Rich List, Liu Yiqian is certainly the one with the biggest appetite for art. Liu, who ranked No. 220 with a net worth of $ 1 billion, yesterday bought a 600-year-old imperial embroidered Tibetan tapestry at a Christie’s auction for $ 348 million Hong Kong dollars ($45 million), setting a record for any Chinese works of art sold by an international auction house.

For the art-savvy Liu, the magnificent piece is too important to miss. The silk tapestry, known as a thangka, is more than three meters tall and two meters wide.

Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian purchased a Tibetan tapestry for HK$348 million ($45 million) at a Christie’s auction in Hong Kong today, breaking the record for the most expensive Chinese work of art he set in April.

Liu, who bought a HK$214 million Chengua-era ceramic cup -- nicknamed the Chicken Cup for its imperial allegorical depiction using poultry -- and then paid for it with his Centurion credit card at Sotheby’s, plans to show both works in his private Shanghai museum.

Shanghai-based art collector Liu Yiqian recently spent $36.3 million on a tiny porcelain cup with a humble chicken painted on its surface. But for many in China, the most shocking thing wasn’t the amount he paid, or the fact that he paid with an American Express card.

No, it was the fact that Mr. Liu decided to celebrate his Ming-dynasty purchase by sipping some tea from it.

The cup in question is one of China’s so-called “chicken cups,” which were forged in imperial kins and possess a particularly silky texture. Though fakes abound, only 19 genuine articles are known to exist. To art experts, they’re known as the “holy grail” of Chinese porcelains.

A Ming Dynasty wine cup sold for $36.05 million at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong on Tuesday, April 8, breaking the world auction record for Chinese porcelain. The tiny porcelain cup, which features a color painting of a rooster and a hen tending to their chicks, was purchased by the Shanghai-based financier, Liu Yiqian, by telephone bid.

The previous record for Chinese porcelain was set in 2010 when a gourd-shaped vase from the Qianlong period sold for $32.58 million. The chicken cup also surpassed the previous world record for Ming Dynasty porcelain, which was set in 2011 by a blue and white vase that brought more than $21 million. Nicolas Chow, deputy chairman of Sotheby’s Asia, said, “There is no more legendary object in the history of Chinese porcelain. This is an object bathed in mythology.”

The chicken cup was created during the reign of the Chenghua Emperor between 1465 and 1487, a period known for its exceptional porcelain. A number of later emperors were so enamored by the chicken cup’s design that they commissioned numerous copies. There are less than 20 such cups in existence, with only four in private collections. Yiqian’s cup is the only genuine chicken cup in China.

Three art historians who are affiliated with the state-run Shanghai Museum are saying that Sotheby’s sold a fake Chinese scroll for $8.2 million last September. ‘Gong Fu Tie,’ which soared past its high estimate of $500,000, was listed as a thousand-year-old masterpiece of Chinese calligraphy by Song Dynasty poet, Su Shi.

The historians are saying that the work, which was purchased by Shanghai businessman and collector, Liu Yiqian, was produced during the 19th century using an old method for copying and retracing artworks. The experts also stated that the forgery was made using a stone carving rather than the original work.

Sotheby’s released a statement saying that the auction house “firmly stands by the attribution of ‘The Gong Fu Tie Calligraphy’ to the Song Dynasty poet Su Shi.” If the scroll is deemed a forgery it could be a major blow to Sotheby’s, which is trying to expand its reach in China and touting its high standard of expertise to collectors both in and outside of the country.