Following Sotheby's best ever year for Asian art auctions in New York, 2014's Asia Week New York sales totalled an outstanding $56.1m.
 The barbed rim dish is comparable with examples in the British Museum, Shanghai Museum and London's Victoria and Albert Museum |
The total is "a solid increase on last March" according to the auction house. The five auctions were led by a Yuan dynasty (14th century) rare blue and white barbed rim dish, which topped the Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art sale at $4.1m on March 18-19.
Sotheby's auction of archaic bronzes saw the Ji Zu Yi Zun, an important wine vessel from the late Shang dynasty (13th-11th century BC), make $1.2m - a 200% increase on its $400,000 high estimate.
 The Ji Zu Yi Zun vessel is one of only two with the same design |
"This was an extraordinary week in New York. Time and time again, we saw multiple bidders - sometimes as many as ten on a single lot - drive prices for the very best Chinese works of art far over the estimates," commented Sotheby's head of Chinese ceramics and works of art, Dr Tao Wang.
The Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art sale was led by Vasudeo S Gaitonde's Painting No. 3, a 1963 piece from the top Indian artist, which sold for $2.5m.
 This work was exhibited at one of Gaitonde's earliest shows in New York |
"It was an honour to accept the winning bid for our museum-quality Gaitonde which sold for over $2.5 million, a further privilege to be the first South Asian auctioneer to take a bid over $1 million for an Indian work of art," said Priyanka Mathew, vice president of Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art.
However, the most astonishing sale of the week came amid the Fine Classical Chinese Paintings and Calligraphy auction on March 20, which saw Wang Shouren's (1472-1529) poem Parting at the Ye River in cursive script sell with a 2,400% increase on its $80,000 high estimate at $2m.
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