Eventually, 36 percent of the lots bit the dust, leaving an impression of lackluster performance despite the very substantial $11.1 million gross. It almost made one overlook the remarkable dynamism displayed throughout by Asian buyers, who bought 9 of the top 10 lots.

Christie’s took over the following day, and the contrast was spectacular. Sales added up to $20.4 million, with only 23 percent of the lots bought in. More important, the auction revealed an even broader scope of Chinese interest than the Sotheby’s session had done.

The first evidence of their wide-ranging interest was provided by the huge success of 114 snuff bottles from a private collection. All sold, realizing $4.3 million, a stupendous figure for a minor art form. Remarkably, the five most expensive pieces went to Chinese bidders. One of these was a small bottle decorated in Beijing enamel with the likeness of a French woman. A Qianlong period (1736–1795) mark indicated that it was made for the emperor in the early part of his reign. Soaring to $825,000, it became the most expensive snuff bottle ever. The exoticism of a European-style image coupled with the imperial aura made it irresistible to Chinese buyers. But a glass bottle painted in a highly traditional manner with a landscape and similarly graced with an imperial mark stirred them enough to send its price up to a huge $457,000.

The sundry sculptures, porcelain objects, cloisonné vessels and other works that followed demonstrated the endless diversity of the art now sought after by Far Eastern bidders. True, the Chinese passed on the two pieces that fetched the most, but neither suited Chinese tastes. One was a 10th-century gilt-bronze figure of a bodhisattva from the area ruled by the Liao Dynasty (907–1125). The Liao kingdom, far to the northwest of Beijing, is believed to have been inhabited by the Khitan, a Mongol people, whose art, although influenced by that of China, is as different from it as that of Korea or Japan. Acquired by Littleton & Hennessy, of London and New York, for a record auction price of $2.5 million, the statue now adorns an American collection.

Although truly Chinese, the second object, a 12th-century vase, was fundamentally alien to the taste of traditional Chinese admirers of Song porcelain. The angular shape of this type of ware, based on Iranian metal models of the 11th century, appeals immensely to the Japanese (Western specialists, in fact, refer to it by its Japanese name, kinuta) and also to the Koreans, whose aesthetic inclinations have influenced Japanese artistic preferences ever since the 7th-century Nara school of Buddhist sculpture. Sure enough, a source tells me that the Korean American collector Chong-Moon Lee forked out the $2.3 million that the kinuta vessel cost.

The next three highest prices, all acheived courtesy of Chinese bidders, went to works of art that differed widely in style, medium and quality. A large Buddha in gilt bronze with the Yongle reign (1403–1425) mark and the mannered smile typical of the period ascended to $1 million, a steep price for a figure that is less than 10 inches high. Next down the list came a bowl superbly suited to the tastes of Chinese cognoscenti brought up in the Mandarin tradition. Decorated with dainty blossoms in red enamel on white ground and inscribed with the Kangxi reign (1662–1722) mark, it was once part of the private collection of the late Edward T. Chow. Few had a better eye than the Shanghai-born connoisseur-dealer, who set up business in Hong Kong after 1949. The bowl will henceforth grace the private collection of William Chak.

Other acquisitions by the Chinese who crowded Christie’s room were not nearly as felicitous. A piece that the Christie’s specialists described as a “rare cloisonné enamel bell” was generously ascribed to the Yongzheng (1723–35) or Qianlong (1736–95) period. In the catalogue, Christie’s reproduced the picture of a related piece from the Beijing Palace Museum, thereby giving the bell quasi-imperial credentials that would enhance its status. Unfortunately, with its spoofy interpretation of the ancient tao-tie mythical animal mask, it looks more like a stage prop in a kung fu movie than an 18th-century rarity. Furiously disputed by Chinese bidders eager to carry home a palace trophy, it miraculously soared to $657,000, more than eight times the experts’ high estimate.