Totaling $26,283,700, Christie’s series of Asian art sales achieved the highest total ever in New York. Five sales, including single-owner sales of Japanese swords and Chinese snuff bottles, were spread out over three days, March 29-31, and witnessed intense bidding and buying.

Several new world auction records were set, most notably for a snuff bottle. An imperial famille rose enameled octagonal snuff bottle, Qianlong, from the J&J Collection became the most expensive snuff bottle ever at $665,600.

From the almost esoteric collection of 56 Japanese swords, which was nearly 100 percent sold and outperformed its presale estimate by far, to the more accessible fields, such as ceramics and paintings, all categories showed vigorous activity, according to Christie’s.

Noteworthy was the rise of the price level for modern and contemporary Indian art, where a total of $3.7 million was achieved by only 94 paintings, the highest result ever for this field. The sales of Chinese art demonstrated active cross-category buying and mainland Chinese clients featured among the high level buyers.

A full review will appear in a future issue.