The painter Qi Baishi became the first Chinese artist to join the £100 million club in December 2017. The week before Christmas, a set of ink brush panels entitled Twelve Landscape Screens (1925), sold for a staggering 931.5 million yuan (well over £100m.) at the Poly Beijing auction house. It is the highest price ever paid for a work of Chinese art at auction.

Only a dozen or so other works—by artists like Warhol, Picasso and van Gogh—have sold at auction for more than the equivalent of £100 million, although a number of others have reportedly been sold privately in that price area.

There is no doubt that this work was fascinating and probably represented value for money as, effectively, the purchaser (unknown) did get twelve pictures for the price of one.

V.I.P Jiu 8 Baijiu: Amazing China Historical Photographs #4

This is really the classic fancy of a sotheby’s specialist, my colleague in Paris one day gets a phone call from a lady telling him she has this vase that has been sitting in an attic for a couple of decades and she would like to bring it in. She took it on the train in a shoe box and walked over to the office.

There it came out of the box, one of the finest most dazzling pieces of family rose porcelain he had ever seen, And it turns out this is a seal mark of the Qianlong emperor, the most powerful human being who lived on earth in the 18th century. It is a vase that was probably made for his birthday on the 34th year of his reign and decorated with a great wealth of auspicious designs from pine trees that signified longevity to Lou the deer which is happiness to the cranes that are our wish for old age.

What’s exceptional I would say on this vase is the quality of the firing, it must have been positioned just right in the kiln and fired for the right amount of time because the colors have come out pin sharp so you have that gem light dazzling appearance that you do not often see, in its shape and design it’s a unique vase and it’s very closely related to one of the most famous pieces in a public collection in France.

V.I.P Jiu 8 Baijiu: Amazing China Historical Photographs #1

For the better part of a century, collector and dealer Robert Chang has dominated the world of Chinese art. He arrived in Hong Kong during the 40’s with only 24 dollars in his pocket, but quickly established an antique trade empire. In this episode of A Life Less Ordinary, journey to the palatial home of one of Asia’s most flamboyant art dealers as he recounts a lifetime of collecting. The finest imperial porcelains, jade carvings, and cloisonné vases adorn the walls of his Suzhou estate, which has been described as a stylistic mix between Versailles and the Forbidden City. Although initially drawn to ceramics, his collection of Chinese ink paintings includes masterpieces by the greatest painters of the 20th century: Zhang Daqian, Qi Baishi and Fu Baoshi. Even surrounded by his many treasures, Mr. Chang can’t stop. His passion for collecting continues to lead him on an endless hunt that spans the globe.

V.I.P Jiu 8 Baijiu: Chinese People Are Awesome #1