A record price for a Chinese painting was set yesterday when a Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) handscroll was auctioned off in Beijing for 79.52 million yuan (US$10.7 million). The price included a 12-percent commission fee, and bidding started at 50 million yuan before hitting the final number.

Du Wei, a spokesman for the China Guardian Art Auction Co Ltd, who staged the auction, confirmed it was the highest price ever paid for a Chinese painting. The Red Cliff Handscroll by Qiu Ying (1494-1552), an artist from Suzhou in Jiangsu Province, came from a private collector on the mainland.

The previous record for an ancient Chinese painting was set in 2002, when a handscroll by Emperor Huizong (1101-26) of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) was sold in Beijing for 25.3 million yuan.

Qiu was a master of gongbi, a meticulous brush technique requiring precise detail. He left just 40 pieces of art, most of which are now in museum collections. Liu Kai, manager of the Chinese painting department of the auction house, said the artist created three handscrolls of the Red Cliff, which lies beside the Yangtze River in Hubei Province.

He drew the three paintings after he read the famous poems Ode on the Red Cliff by Su Shi (1037-1101), a well-known poet of the Song Dynasty. All three paintings depict scenes of Su Shi and his friends floating in a boat around the Red Cliff at a night. 

Seals of collectors on the third handscroll indicate it was kept by Zhang Xiuyu, one of the greatest art sponsors of the late Ming Dynasty. All were once owned by the Qing imperial family since Chongzi, the third son of Emperor Kangxi collected them, and the other two are now at the Shanghai Museum and Liaoning Museum.

The auctioned scroll had been lost since 1924 when the last Emperor Puyi took it while escaping his palace in Beijing. At 23.5 centimeters high and 129 centimeters long, the scroll is the longest and most precious of the three handscrolls of the Red Cliff.

(China Daily and China.org.cn November 7, 2007)