Asia is on the rise, and its presence is making itself felt in the art market as never before. The question haunting professionals is how long buyers of Asian art can remain indifferent to the financial earthquake shaking the world economies. As this issue went to press, there was no sign that their enthusiasm was abating. The very opposite, in fact, was demonstrated during the New York Asia Week in March.

Chinese bidders were if anything bolder than they were last fall. Furious competition among dealers and collectors continued to raise the prices of the lowest-grade goods as well as those deemed most desirable—an unmistakable sign of a real boom.

This was crystal clear at the Sotheby’s sale of Chinese art on March 18. The third lot, a small jade pebble wrought into a mountainous landscape, dating from the Qing Dynasty, nearly quadrupled its high estimate, making $43,000. The delightful handling of the pine tree set against a steep mountainside and the skillful use of the russet veins of the stone to frame the scenery justified the frenzy the piece triggered among Chinese bidders. But the jade figure of the mythical feline called Qilin that followed, unlikely to be of considerable age, hardly warranted the $25,000 it brought, almost tripling the high estimate.

With rare exceptions, the jades continued to energize the room, regardless of style or period. A white-jade bowl in the Mughal manner, whose appearance suggested a more recent date of creation than the Qianlong period (1736–95) to which it was attributed, nevertheless realized an astonishing $157,000.

It was not just jade that excited the Chinese bidders. All the objects that matched received ideas of what is desirable in the Mandarin tradition were rapturously received. An 18th-century bamboo carving of the Immortal Liu Hai laughing his head off, expected to bring $7,000 to $9,000, made $37,000. Whether the figure fetched this surprising price because its subject is the god of wealth or because its wood box points to a Japanese provenance, thus giving buyers the feeling that they were recovering a piece of their ancient heritage from their old enemy, is anybody’s guess.

The psychological hold of symbols over Chinese collectors was evident in the performance of another bamboo carving, which represented a boat carrying the Eight Taoist Immortals. Instead of riding clouds they decided to trust themselves to their supernatural powers and brave the tempestuous sea after attending a festival. The message of the allegory is that by pooling individual strengths, the biggest obstacles can be overcome. While Sotheby’s prudently dated the piece within the “Qing Dynasty, 18th/19th century,” connoisseurs doubted that it had been made much earlier than the 20th century. That day, however, the power of the Eight Immortals proved priceless, and the boat glided to a phenomenal $217,000.

For those who remain faithful to the tradition of the Mandarin literati, the Song period (960–1279) is the golden age of art, and porcelain is its supreme achievement. Failing examples of sublime Song porcelain, Sotheby’s offered two vessels that associated the mottled glazes of Jun ware with the heavier potting of the Ming period. A late 14th-century dish with low incurving sides, a ravishing purple glaze outside and turquoise inside, drove the Chinese nuts. It ended up at $869,800, more than doubling the experts’ estimate. There followed another bowl of the same shape, with a mottled blue glaze, which the Hong Kong dealer William Chak, who had bowed out of the previous contest, won for a staggering $825,000.

Had Sotheby’s not been desperate to fill its catalogue, the session would have ended in triumph. Sadly, many objects raised questions regarding period or quality. Even more sadly, four breathtakingly beautiful masterpieces that the house had prized out of a Taiwanese collection had gigantic reserves, judging from the estimates, the highest of which was $8 million to $9 million. This left them no earthly chance to make it. Thus did four admirable bronze vessels of the Western Zhou period, cast around the 10th century b.c., fall unwanted, one after the other.

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.

The lack of experience of many bidders manifested itself repeatedly, as objects of ill-determined age but dealing with themes dear to the Chinese heart came up. A white-jade rabbit that the Christie’s specialists had very optimistically dated to the 17th or 18th century brought $18,750. Shortly afterward, a greenish white-jade circular box decorated in a manner suggesting a far later vintage than the 18th- or 19th-century date ascribed to it in the catalogue realized $43,000, more than two and a half times its high estimate.

Possibly galvanized by the bullishness of Chinese buyers, Western dealers also proved willing to pay three or four times the high estimates for top-quality objects on the very day the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 2.36 percent. Stuart Marchant, of London, bought an elegant red-glazed bottle with a Qianlong seal mark for $73,000 (est. $20–25,000) and immediately went after another piece. Ignoring the $30,000 to $40,000 estimate, he paid $157,000 to secure a bowl-shaped brush washer with a peach-bloom glaze and the six-character Kangxi mark. Like the Kangxi bowl sold earlier, it too had belonged to Edward T. Chow.

Giuseppe Eskenazi, the leading international dealer in early Chinese art, went up to $421,000 to get a Shang period blade of the late 13th or early 12th century b.c. The few comparable pieces that exist are locked up in museums. No other object of that type and quality is likely to tumble onto the market, making the Christie’s $15,000-to-$18,000 estimate seem absurdly low.

Eskenazi was the underbidder on another Shang object, a bronze vase with a slender body and a trumpet-shaped neck cast in the 11th century b.c. The piece, yet another Edward T. Chow possession, is the finest vessel of this type that I have seen on the market in four decades. Eskenazi gave up as the bidding reached $133,000 and later told me he regretted not having been bolder.

Other bidders may on the contrary feel sorry that they did not stop sooner. The imperial-provenance syndrome affecting many Chinese collectors resulted in some wild prices. A case in point was a large white-jade disk worked in the ancient Chinese style and inscribed with a Qianlong mark and a poem by the emperor. The catalogue entry for the piece noncommitally stated that it was “dated to the jia-yin year corresponding to 1794 and possibly of the period ” (my italics). The $20,000-to-$30,000 estimate reflected the uncertainty concerning the period, as well as the imperfect condition of the work itself, which has big cracks running across the pattern. The anonymous buyer who ran the vase up to an extravagant $337,000 didn’t seem to have any qualms.

The other extraordinarily generous price that day was paid for a porcelain “moon flask” that was not in the impeccable condition one might expect in a piece estimated at $500,000 to $600,000. The vase’s compressed circular body is a revivalist interpretation from the 18th century of a model adopted after the 13th-century Mongol conquest of China. The Qianlong seal mark and the pattern of stylized blossoms carried by swirling scrolls vouch for its authenticity. Unfortunately the foot is ground down on one side, which makes it look lopsided, and the shape itself is slightly off balance. However, the Qianlong flask is the largest known example of its type, and this may have convinced the lone bidder, who bought it against the reserve, to pay $541,000 for it. Some time may have to pass before the inflationary trend in Chinese art so evident in March justifies the price.

Beyond the auction arena, the impact of Chinese bullishness on the market was equally clear. Knapton Rasti Asian Art of London, for one, did brilliantly because it targeted certain types of Chinese buyers, such as those looking for traditionally sought-after mediums like jade, rather than definite schools or styles. The buyers pounced on the white-jade objects Nader Rasti and Christopher Knapton displayed at the International Asian Art Fair. At the private viewing, six of the pieces were sold, including a small screen with a poem by the Qianlong emperor on its period carved-wood stand, which a Shanghai dealer bought for a $320,000. However, their onslaught did not discourage Western collectors. The second-most expensive object sold by Knapton Rasti, a circular brush washer decorated with an imperial dragon and inscribed with the Qianlong seal mark, was the kind of piece beloved by the Chinese, but an English collector jumped in first and bagged the object with a $250,000 price tag.

James Lally, the leading American dealer in top-quality Chinese art, who sells from his New York gallery, says that he did much better in this year’s Asia Week than in 2007 and that the difference was mostly due to Western buyers. Lally sold a rare 8th-century gilt-bronze Guanyin figure, priced just under $1 million, from his catalogue to a New York collector before the March 17 private viewing. By the end of the first week, only 9 of the 28 works illustrated in the catalogue remained available.

Uptown, at PaceWildenstein on 57th Street, where Eskenazi always holds his Asia Week show, Western buyers also dominated. At the March 15 private viewing, a European collector grabbed an eight-lobed silver box of the early 8th century decorated with gilt blossoms. The price was in the region of $400,000, but the object ranks among the most beautiful specimens of Tang silver to be seen anywhere. A so-far-unique bronze and gilt-copper mirror with colored-glass insets was placed by Eskenazi within the Tang period, although the pattern and aesthetic handling show it is not of Chinese manufacture. Possibly hailing from the southern province of Yunnan, which had a non-Chinese population in the 8th century, the mirror was picked up by a collector from the Midwest for around $330,000.

Interestingly, a Taiwan collector bought one of Eskenazi’s finest sculptures, a stone bodhisattva head carved between a.d. 570 and 580, during the Northern Qi Dynasty. Japanese photographs prove that it comes from the Tianlongshan Buddhist rock shrines, where it was broken off one of the statues in Cave 16 well before 1939. Although they traditionally stay away from stone fragments or relics removed from Buddhist shrines, some Chinese collectors have recently started buying such objects, putting the recovery of looted pieces of their national heritage above religious taboos.

From the top to the bottom of the connoisseurship pyramid, Chinese buyers have never been so active, whether goaded by the love of art, the search for status symbols with an imperial aura or the desire to recover what was once legitimately theirs. And where their art is concerned, nothing is likely to stop them.

"The Chinese Surge" originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's June 2008 Table of Contents.