The 17th of December in 2017 has witnessed the selling of the most expensive Chinese artwork in record: Qi Baishi’s Twelve Screens of Landscapes created in 1925 went under the hammer at Beijing Poly Auction at 930 million RMB, namely 142 million US dollars, bought buy a Chinese collector.
Qi Baishi (1 January 1864 – 16 September 1957) was a Chinese painter, noted for the whimsical, often playful style of his watercolor works.
Born to a peasant family from Xiangtan, Hunan, Qi became a carpenter at 14, and learned to paint by himself. After he turned 40, he traveled, visiting various scenic spots in China. After 1917 he settled in Beijing.
He has created only 2 extant Twelve Screens of Landscapes in his 93-year-old life. The present set, created by Qi at the age of 62 years old as a birthday gift to the renowned doctor Chen Zilin, was kept in the hand of one of Qi’s female pupil Xiuyi Guo. It was originally set to be sold at Beijing Poly Auction in 2015 with an estimate of RMB 800m -1.5b but the plan was later called off. This time, the painting carried a pre-sale estimate of RMB 500m and was sold for RMB 931.5 million.
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave