Christie’s Hong Kong delivered a white-glove 20th/21st Century Evening Sale on 29 September, selling all 50 lots for a combined HK$726 million (US$92.6 million).
Western masters were the night’s strongest performers. Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Sir Peter Paul Rubens and Salvador Dalí all set new auction records in Asia, with results ranging from HK$17.3 million to HK$40.6 million.
Across the sale, 22 works crossed the HK$10 million mark. The top lot was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Ancient Scientist (1984), which sold for nearly HK$77 million (US$9.8 million) – the highest price of Hong Kong's autumn auction week.
Lot 9 | Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) | Ancient Scientist, acrylic, oilstick and Xerox paper collage on canvas
Executed in 1984
169 x 156 cm
Provenance (Supplemented by The Value):
- Larry Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles
- Private collection, Chicago (acquired from the above in 1984)
- Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
- Private collection, Arizona
- Sotheby's New York, 11 May 2005, lot 348
- Galerie Jan Krugier, Ditesheim & Cie, Geneva (acquired by 2005)
- Private collection, Europe (acquired from the above)
- Phillips in Association with Poly Auction Hong Kong, 3 December 2020, lot 7 (Sold: HK$58,330,000)
- Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Subject to Third-Party Guarantee
Estimate: HK$56,000,000 - 76,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$62,500,000
Sold: HK$76,975,000
Ancient Scientist last appeared at auction in 2020, when it sold for HK$58.3 million at the Phillips and Poly Auction joint evening sale in Hong Kong. Six years later, the painting returned to the block at Christie’s with an opening bid of HK$45 million.
Auctioneer Rahul Kadakia, Christie’s President for Asia Pacific, took more than ten bids before bringing the hammer down at HK$62.5 million. With fees, the work sold for around HK$77 million to paddle 8411, a telephone client represented by ShanShan Wei, Associate Specialist, Hong Kong.
Painted in 1984, Ancient Scientist delivers the raw visual charge associated with Basquiat at the height of his powers: coarse lines, primal brushwork, seemingly impulsive marks, and explosive colour. Beneath that unruly energy lies a dense web of cultural reference and critique.
The figure at left, the “scientist” of the title, wears what appears to be an African mask. Basquiat knew well how Picasso’s encounter with African masks and so-called primitive art had helped give rise to Cubism. In Ancient Scientist, he seems both to acknowledge Picasso’s legacy and to ask a sharper question: where does African civilisation stand in the art-historical narrative that made Cubism famous?
Rahul Kadakia brought the hammer down at HK$62.5 million
ShanShan Wei won the lot for her client, paddle 8411
On the right, Basquiat sets an exaggerated female form against the masked male figure. With enlarged breasts and a swollen abdomen, she recalls prehistoric fertility figures such as the Venus of Willendorf. Along the lower edge, collage-like images of plants, including the Solanum plant known as the “apple of Sodom” and a fig leaf, evoke medieval botanical illustrations and point to the story of the forbidden fruit.
Across the canvas, Ancient Scientist draws together African art, prehistoric worship, Christian mythology, medieval botany, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Cubism. Basquiat turns that history into a question of visibility and authority: who is placed at the centre of civilisation, art and science, and who remains outside the frame?
The year 1984 marked a turning point in Basquiat’s career. His solo exhibition at Mary Boone Gallery in New York confirmed his ascent from graffiti prodigy to art-world star, while one of his paintings sold at Christie’s that year for US$19,000, an astonishing price at the time for a young Black artist. During this period, he also began collaborating with Andy Warhol, forging one of the most closely watched artistic relationships in 1980s New York.
Left: Close-up of the present lot; Right: Venus of Willendorf, Collection of Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria
Close-up of the present lot
Lot 6 | Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) | L’Assiette bleue, oil on canvas (Auction record for the artist in Asia)
Painted in 1879-1880
28 x 22.7 cm
Provenance:
- Octave Mirbeau, Paris
- Alice Regnault, Paris (by descent from the above)
- Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired from the above on 4 November 1920)
- Alphonse Kann, Saint-Germain-en-Laye (acquired from the above on 8 March 1924, until at least 1938)
- Peter Pitt-Millward, Paço da Glória and London, by 1954 (probably by descent from the above); sale, Sotheby’s London, 6 May 1959, lot 74
- Einstein, London
- Sir Edward and Lady Hulton, London, by 1964, and until at least 1968 (on extended loan to Kunsthaus, Zurich)
- Private collection, Switzerland
- The Lefevre Gallery (Alex Reid. & Lefevre, Ltd.), London, by 1981.
- Fuji Gallery, Tokyo
- Ise Cultural Foundation, Japan (acquired in 1988); sale, Sotheby’s New York, 13 November 2023, lot 14
- Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Subject to Third-Party Guarantee
Estimate: HK$25,000,000 - 35,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$32,500,000
Sold: HK$40,550,000
Paul Cézanne’s L’Assiette bleue opened at HK$18 million and drew bidding from at least three buyers, including clients represented by Wei, Asia Chairman Kevin Ching, and Ada Ong, Managing Director, Taipei. It hammered at HK$32.5 million to Ong’s client, paddle 8340, and sold for around HK$40.6 million with fees, setting a new auction record for Cézanne in Asia.
The painting is one of sixteen still lifes Cézanne made in Melun during the winter of 1879–80, as he was grappling with what he called the “greatest problems” posed by nature and moved toward a more structured language of form and colour. Still life offered him an ideal subject: objects he could arrange, study, and revisit.
L’Assiette bleue is one of the group’s most radical compositions. Cézanne narrows the view to a fragment, cropping the plate and fruit at the edges and tilting the tabletop into a strong diagonal. Colour gives the objects their weight, from the green, yellow and red passages of the pear to the cobalt of the plate reflected across the fruit.
Among its earliest recorded owners was Octave Mirbeau, the critic and collector who championed Cézanne, Renoir and Van Gogh in fin-de-siècle France. The work later passed through the collections of Alphonse Kann and Sir Edward and Lady Hulton before entering Japan's Ise Cultural Foundation.
Ada Ong won the lot for her client, paddle 8340
Paul Cézanne, Pêches, poires et raisin (1879-1880) | Collection of the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
Paul Cézanne, Pommes et biscuits (1880) | Collection of Musée e l’Orangerie, Paris
Lot 8 | Henri Matisse (1869-1954) | Jeune femme au canapé, oil on canvas | Property of the Denver Art Museum Foundation (Auction record for the artist in Asia)
Painted in 1944
46 x 27 cm
Provenance:
- Estate of the artist
- Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
- Galerie de l'Elysée (Alex Maguy), Paris, by 1972
- Madame Carrére de Lessing (acquired from the above)
- Hans Ravenborg, Hamburg (acquired from the above, 1994); sale, Christie's, New York, 6 November 2001, lot 57
- Frederic C. Hamilton, Denver (acquired from the above)
- Gifted from the above to the present owner, 2002
Subject to Third-Party Guarantee
Estimate: HK$20,000,000 - 30,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$30,500,000
Sold: HK$38,110,000
Matisse's Jeune femme au canapé, offered by the Denver Art Museum Foundation to benefit its acquisition fund, depicts Ginette "Nenette" Palomarès, one of the artist's final models in Nice, in a composition alive with the saturated colour of his late work.
Estimated at HK$20 million, it attracted bids from at least four buyers before hammering at HK$30.5 million to a client of Prapavadee Sophonpanich, General Manager, Bangkok, paddle 8301. With fees, it sold for HK$38.1 million, surpassing the artist’s Asia auction record set a day earlier at Sotheby’s, where an earlier portrait made HK$21 million.
Henri Matisse, Femme nue (circa 1915), 65.3 x 54.5 cm | Sold: HK$21,030,000, Sotheby's Hong Kong, September 2026
Prapavadee Sophonpanich won the lot for her client, paddle 8301
The sale also marked the first Asia auction appearances for works by Baroque master Rubens and Surrealist Dalí.
Following the debut of an Old Master at Christie's Hong Kong last spring, Rubens' Landscape with Willows came to the rostrum this season. One of around forty known painted landscapes by the artist and one of only two still in private hands, the work came to market for the first time in more than 225 years and set the master's record in Asia at HK$19.2 million.
Dalí's Ensorcellement – les sept arts (Tragedy and Comedy – The Seven Lively Arts) (1957) belongs to a celebrated project commissioned by Broadway producer and lyricist Billy Rose as a tribute to the theatrical arts. It surpassed its high estimate, hammering at HK$13.5 million and selling for HK$17.3 million with fees to an online bidder from the UAE.
Lot 31 | Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) | Landscape with willows, oil on panel (Auction record for the artist in Asia)
19.7 x 35.6 cm
Provenance:
- (Possibly) John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll; his sale (†), Phillips, London, 25 May 1798, lot 15, where acquired for 2 gns. by the following,
- Hendrik Frans de Cort (1742-1810), London
- Charles Butler (1822-1910), Warren Wood, Hatfield
- Edward and Sally Speelman, London, by whom reputedly acquired circa 1960 from the grandson of the above, Patrick John Butler (b. 1912)
Subject to Third-Party Guarantee
Estimate: HK$6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$15,000,000
Sold: HK$19,200,000
Lot 20 | Salvador Dali (1904-1989) | Ensorcellement - Les sept arts (Tragedy and Comedy -The Seven Lively Arts), oil on canvas (Auction record for the artist in Asia)
Painted in 1957
84 x 114.5 cm
Provenance:
- Billy Rose, New York (acquired from the artist)
- George Farkas, New York
- Alex Maguy, Paris (acquired from the above circa 1973)
- Private collection, France (by descent from the above); sale, Christie's, London, 4 February 2002, lot 83
- Private collection (acquired at the above sale)
- Thence by descent to the present owner
Subject to Third-Party Guarantee
Estimate: HK$9,000,000 - 12,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$13,500,000
Sold: HK$17,280,000
Liang-Lin Chen at the rostrum for the second half of the evening sale
Other Highlight Lots
The evening’s second- and third-highest prices went to Zao Wou-Ki and Yayoi Kusama. Voie Lactée – 09.11.56, a large-scale work from Zao’s earlier Oracle Bone period, hammered at HK$47.5 million and sold for HK$58.8 million with fees. Won by a client represented by Yunah Jung, Senior Specialist in Seoul, the painting is the only known work in Zao’s oeuvre devoted solely to the Milky Way.
Kusama’s A-Pumpkin (YHP) came to market just a day after another major pumpkin painting, Pumpkin (TWPOT), sold for HK$60.7 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. The auctioneer opened bidding at HK$30 million and drew around eight bids before the work sold to another client represented by Jung for HK$58.2 million with fees, landing within estimates.
A single buyer, paddle 8343, represented by Arco Yu, Head of Evening Sale, 20th and 21st Century Art, Asia Pacific, acquired two late works by Picasso for a combined HK$50.6 million. Among them, Buste d’homme, an oil on corrugated cardboard from his Musketeer series, sold for HK$25.1 million.
Chu Teh-Chun's diptych Automne – the only snow scene rendered in an autumnal palette from his acclaimed Snow Landscape series – drew competition before selling for HK$37.5 million with fees, while Wu Guanzhong’s small-scale oil Hong Kong at Night (Tsim Sha Tsui) made HK$10.2 million. Meanwhile, Western post-war abstraction looked more subdued this season. Richter’s Abstraktes Bild hammered below estimate, while Rothko’s Untitled (Plum and Dark Brown) was withdrawn from Sotheby’s sale the previous evening.
Lot 32 | Zao Wou-ki (Zhao Wuji, 1920-2013) | Voie lactée - 09.11.56 (Milky Way - 09.11.56), oil on canvas
Painted in 1956
162.2 x 114 cm
Provenance (Supplemented by The Value):
- Galerie de France, Paris
- Private collection, Paris
- Perrin-Royère-Lajeunesse, 13 March 1988, lot 123
- Private collection, France
- Christie’s Taipei, 12 April 1998, lot 3
- Private collection, Asia (acquired from the above)
- Christie’s Hong Kong, 25 April 2004, lot 720
- Private collection, Asia (acquired from the above)
- Christie's Shanghai, 21 September 2019, lot 307 (Sold: RMB 56,400,000)
- Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Estimate: HK$45,000,000 - 75,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$47,500,000
Sold: HK$58,850,000
Lot 5 | Yayoi Kusama (1929-2026) | A-Pumpkin (YHP), acrylic on canvas
Painted in 2011
130.2 x 162 cm
Provenance:
- Gagosian, Hong Kong
- Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2012
Subject to Third-Party Guarantee
Estimate: HK$48,000,000 - 68,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$47,000,000
Sold: HK$58,240,000
Lot 26 | Chu Teh-Chun (Zhu Dequn, 1920-2014) | Automne (Autumn), oil on canvas (diptych)
Painted in 1985
Overall: 195.1 x 260.3 cm
Provenance:
- Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner
Estimate: HK$25,000,000 - 35,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$30,000,000
Sold: HK$37,500,000
Lot 28 | Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) | Abstraktes Bild, oil on wood
Painted in 1991
95.3 x 100 cm
Provenance:
- Galerie Liliane & Michel Durand-Dessert, Paris
- Private collection, Geneva (acquired from the above)
- Christie's London, 17 October 2006, lot 431
- Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Estimate: HK$38,000,000 - 55,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$28,000,000
Sold: HK$35,060,000
Lot 13 | Liu Ye (b. 1964) | Blue Sea, oil on canvas
Painted in 1998
170 x 200 cm
Provenance (Supplemented by The Value):
- Lococo Mulder, Amsterdam (acquired directly from the artist)
- Christie's Hong Kong, 27 May 2007, lot 497
- Private collection (acquired from the above)
- Faces of New China: An Important Private Collection, Christie's Hong Kong, 26 November 2011, lot 1030 (Sold: HK$14,100,000)
- Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Estimate: HK$16,000,000 - 26,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$23,000,000
Sold: HK$28,960,000
Lot 17 | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) | Femme Nue III, oil on canvas | Sold to paddle 8343
Painted on 18 December 1964
45.7 x 61 cm
Provenance:
- Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
- Galerie Pierre Levy, Paris
- Acquired from the above by the present owners in 2001
Subject to Third-Party Guarantee
Estimate: HK$18,000,000 - 28,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$20,200,000
Sold: HK$25,544,000
Lot 16 | Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) | Buste d’homme, oil on corrugated cardboard | Sold to paddle 8343
Painted on 9 June 1969
130.2 x 65 cm
Provenance (Supplemented by The Value):
- Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
- Galerie Félix Vercel, Paris
- Private collection (acquired from the above, 2013); sale, Christie’s Paris, 21 October 2016, lot 116 (€1,922,500)
- Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Subject to Third-Party Guarantee
Estimate: HK$18,000,000 - 28,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$19,800,000
Sold: HK$25,056,000
Lot 29 | Yayoi Kusama (1929-2026) | INFINITY-NETS [WUPT], acrylic on canvas
Painted in 2016
112 x 145.5 cm
Provenance:
- OTA Fine Arts, Singapore
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Subject to Third-Party Guarantee
Estimate: HK$13,000,000 - 20,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$14,500,000
Sold: HK$18,560,000
Lot 18 | George Condo (b. 1957) | Woman & Man, oil on canvas
Painted in 2008
221.5 x 195.8 cm
Provenance (Supplemented by The Value):
- Luhring Augustine, New York
- Gary Tatintsian Gallery, Moscow
- Private collection, Russia (acquired from the above)
- Phillips London, 9 February 2016, lot 43
- Private collection (acquired from the above)
- Phillips London, 8 March 2018, lot 24 (Sold: £1,329,000)
- Private collection
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Subject to Third-Party Guarantee
Estimate: HK$13,000,000 - 20,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$11,500,000
Sold: HK$14,720,000
Lot 19 | Fernando Botero (1932-2023) | A Family, oil on canvas
Painted in 2012
140 x 183 cm
Provenance:
- Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich
- Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2014
Subject to Third-Party Guarantee
Estimate: HK$9,500,000 - 13,500,000
Hammer Price: HK$10,000,000
Sold: HK$12,800,000
Lot 14 | Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959) | Miss Forest / Creamy Snow, urethane on bronze
Executed in 2016
Edition: 1⁄3 + 2 AP
239 x 74.6 x 64 cm
Provenance:
- Blum & Poe, Tokyo
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Subject to Third-Party Guarantee
Estimate: HK$9,500,000 - 13,500,000
Hammer Price: HK$9,500,000
Sold: HK$12,160,000
Lot 10 | Alex Katz (b. 1927) | Laura 10, oil on linen
Painted in 2017
152.4 x 228.6 cm
Provenance:
- Gladstone Gallery, New York
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$5,000,000 - 8,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$8,500,000
Sold: HK$10,880,000
Lot 24 | Wu Guanzhong (1919-2010) | Hong Kong at Night (Tsim Sha Tsui), oil on board
Painted in 1990
54.7 x 46 cm
Provenance:
- Private collection, Asia
- Christie's Hong Kong, 27 November 2010, lot 1004
- Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Estimate: HK$8,000,000 - 12,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$8,000,000
Sold: HK$10,240,000
Auction Details:
Auction House: Christie's Hong Kong
Sale: 20th/21st Century Evening Sale
Date: 29 September 2026
Number of Lots: 50
Sold: 50
Sale Rate: 100%
Sale Total: HK$726,421,000