Next Monday the fall auction season begins in China with a jam-packed day of sales in Hong Kong. Sotheby’s will begin the market event in the morning with modern and contemporary Southeast Asian paintings, but most collectors will be focused on the afternoon sales, when Sotheby’s and Seoul Auctions will both offer highly-anticipated lots of recent Asian and Western art.

Hitting the block at Sotheby’s will be 20th-century Chinese art, a sector which consistently attracts spirited attention from Chinese mainland collectors and which provided the star lot in Christie’s spring auctions in Hong Kong, when Chen Yifeis "String Quartet" sold for a new auction record of HK$7.85 million (US$1.01 million). The auction house’s slate this fall is particularly strong. Headlined by Sanyus gorgeous painting "Pink Nude on Floral Sheet" (HK$12–18 million or $1.5–2.3 million), the sale also includes masterworks by members of China’s "School of Paris," including Zao Wou-ki and Chu Teh-chun, as well as an important 1970s work by the late great Wu Guanzhong, "A Mountain Village in the North," that is estimated at HK$5–7 million ($644-902,000).

The Seoul Auctions afternoon sale — which opens a scant hour after Sotheby’s — covers modern and contemporary art from Asia and the West. The respected Korean auctioneers have pioneered the sale of Western art in Hong Kong and this event, with a total estimated value of HK$100 million ($12.9 million), takes their efforts to a new level with the inclusion of a beautiful late-period Marc Chagall titled "Bestiare et Musique" (1969), which is making its auction debut, carrying a HK$31.2 million ($4.0 million) estimate. This is seen as something of a litmus test for the development of the Chinese market, where collectors have almost exclusively focused on Chinese art as dealers and auction houses continue to hope that the region embraces Western art with the enthusiasm that marked Japan’s entry into this market in the 1970s.

But from the viewpoint of Beijing, which is eager to take the temperature of the contemporary art market after an uneven spring and summer, the sale to watch is Sotheby’s Monday evening offering of contemporary Asian art. This session will start with a single group of work from what the house has dubbed an "important European collection." (Much speculation has surrounded the identity of the collector in question.) The list of works is a catalogue of key names in Chinese contemporary art, from the relatively obscure but important pioneer of Political Pop Yu Youhan, whose 1995 "Waving Mao" is estimated at HK$700-900,000 ($90–116,000) to auction superstar Zhang Xiaogang, whose 1997 "Bloodline Series: Yellow Baby" painting is estimated at HK$5-7 million ($644-902,000). The collection is also particularly strong in works by Shanghai artists, many acquired from the taste-making ShanghART Gallery: among the works offered will be examples by Li Shan, Ding Yi, and Yang Zhengzhong. It is clear that the collection has been put together with commitment and taste, suggesting that the mystery collector is not mere a speculator looking to flip his hoard when the time is right.

Despite the upbeat results at the spring Chinese contemporary art auctions in Hong Kong — particularly the Christie’s May sale — and the wildly successful Art HK art fair, the market for recent work has not yet recovered from the worldwide economic slump. Art fairs from Taipei to Seoul to Shanghai have told the same story: the market is at best treading water, with deep-pocketed collectors continuing to hang back.

Although a recent ArtTactic survey suggested that most market players are confident that the sector is recovering or will rebound in the next year, some gallerists and artists have confided to ARTINFO China they find the market to still be painfully slow outside of the auction room. There was a flutter of excitement around Beijing this week, however, as word spread that French über collector Francois Pinault was on his way to the capital to visit a number of studios.

The answer could actually emerge at the Sotheby’s sale when one key lot goes on the block: an early work by China’s contemporary auction star Zhang Xiaogang, which was consigned late and has attracted incredible buzz. The piece was created in 1992, when Zhang was on the brink of the great breakthrough that led to his iconic — and supremely collectible — "Bloodlines" series. The 1992 painting heading to auction, "Chapter of a New Century – Birth of the People’s Republic of China II," carries an estimate of HK$21–23 million ($2.7–3.0 million). It was first shown at the pivotal Guangzhou Biennial in the year of its making and evidences Zhang's struggle at the time to combine the public iconography of the Cultural Revolution with private family photographs showing the period of upheaval's intimate, personal dimension. After being shown the painting disappeared from view, appropriated along with other works as "payment" by the organizers of the biennial. It now comes to auction for the first time, a seminal piece that more than one expert has observed belongs in a museum.

Stay tuned for ARTINFO China's reports from the sales next week, which will also cover Sotheby’s sales of fine Chinese painting, including works from an "Important Private Collection of Qing Historical Works of Art."