A work by Chinese modern master Qi Baishi entitled "A Long Life, a Peaceful World" (1946) sold for RMB 425.5 million ($65 million) at China Guardian Auctions in Beijing yesterday, setting a new record for Chinese painting. The work, which is also referred to more prosaically, if more descriptively, as "Eagle Standing on Pine Tree With Four-Character Couplet in Seal Script," was presented by the artist (who died in 1957) as a gift to the then leader of China, Chiang Kai-shek, in 1946. It is said that four years later Qi, in a neat piece of diplomacy, created a similar work for Chiang's nemesis, Mao Zedong.

Over the last couple of years, as Chinese collectors have increasingly made their presence felt in auction rooms around the world, the value of works by modern masters like Qi Baishi, Xu Beihong, Zhang Daqian, and Fu Baoshi have skyrocketed. Last year these modern artists, whose work is in the traditional Chinese style, took out four of the top ten spots in Artprice's global rankings by auction revenue. In the Artprice 2010 list Qi Baoshi even trumped Andy Warhol, coming in second and edging Warhol into third place. Given Warhol's recent winning streak at the auction block, it is yet to be seen whether Qi can pull off a similar trick this year.

The previous record for a Chinese painting at auction was set last year at Beijing's Hanhai auction house, when Xu Beihong's "Ba People Fetching Water" (1937) sold for for RMB 171 million ($25.8 million). Qi Baishi's work now takes third place overall in the record rankings of Chinese works of art at auction. First place is held by the Qianlong vase that sold at Bainbridges in the United Kingdom for $85.9 million last November, with second place going to a calligraphy by Song Dynasty master Huang Tingjian that sold at Poly Auctions in Beijing last June for RMB 436.8 million ($64 million).

The Qi Baishi sale is the highlight so far of the Guardian Auctions spring season. Guardian, the oldest auction house in China, will be hoping the sale will help it to re-establish its supremacy over arch-rival Poly Auctions. Last year Poly came out ahead overall, chalking up RMB 9.15 billion ($1.5 billion) in sales in 2010, beating out Guardian's tally of RMB 7.55 billion yuan ($1.1 billion). By way of comparison, sales at Christie's and Sotheby's Hong Kong last year totaled $721.9 million and $685.1 million, respectively.