The mostly strong sales during September Asia Week showed that — no surprise — the thirst for Asian art continues to be powerful, and that, this year at least, Christie's leads the way as the top auctioneer for the market category. The Rockefeller Center-based house posted a strong sales in four of the five auctions it held to take home $75.8 Million, while its York Avenue competitor, Sotheby's, had only middling results after its three auctions, bringing in $31.5 million. 

The highlight of the week was Christie's sale of Chinese ceramics and works of art, which sent over 500 works under the hammer Friday afternoon for a sale total of over $38 million, with 80 percent sold by lot and 89 percent by value. Before the auction, the estimated top lot was a rare large gilt-bronze figure of Vairocana, one of the five Buddhas (sometimes known as the "supreme Buddha"). Pegged to sell for $600,000-800,000, the figure fetched a solid $722,500. But that was chickenfeed compared to the stupendous $2.7 million achieved by a rare blue and white Ming-style moonflask, dating from the mid-to-late 17th century and bearing a Qianlong seal mark on its underside. The sum nearly quintupled the flask's estimate. Another bronze figure of Vairocana fell squarely in the middle of its $1-1.5 million bracket, notching a final sale price of $1.3 million.

Sotheby's equivalent auction of Chinese ceramics and works of art did not fare as well. The expected top three lots went unsold, including two rare archaic bronze ritual food vessels from ancient China. Only 67 percent of works by lot found buyers, and a hair under 70 percent by value. However, a gilt-bronze votive Buddha stele from the Northern Wei Dynasty (4th-6th centuries), sold well above its estimate ($600,000-800,000) to bring in just over $1 million. The auction brought in a total of $22 million for Sotheby's, including buyer's premiums, putting it on the lower half of the sale's $19.3-27.6 million estimate (which does not include buyer's premium). When the $6.5 million from Tuesday's classical Chinese paintings sale is added to the total, the Chinese paintings and works of art sales handed Sotheby's $29 million for the week.

In the auctions of modern and contemporary Indian and Southeast Asian, Sotheby's again struggled while Christie's showed a strong result. At Sotheby's, the top selling item was S.H. Raza's "Eglise" (1962), which realized $362,500 (est. $300,000-500,000). Meanwhile, 36 of the 87 offered lots went unsold, for a $2.3 million sale with only 59 percent sold by lot and 67 percent sold by value.

Christie's equivalent auction starred an array of paintings by M.F. Husain, the Indian modernist who died in June. That sale brought in $7.3 million, with 69 percent of the 111 lots sold by lot and 82 percent sold by value. All 10 Husain paintings offered not only found buyers but ended up in the top 15 lots of the sale. The standout was "Sprinkling Horses" (date unknown) which went for $1.1 million, just above the "on request" estimate of about $1 million. The tally fetched by the artist's work constituted more than half of the entire auction's total. (Sotheby's also presented several paintings by Husain, but none went for more than $150,000.)

Hugo Weihe, the head of the South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art department at Christie's, referred to Husain as "clearly one of the founding fathers of Indian modern art," and told ARTINFO that "after the sale, every collector in the field will need to have a work of Husain's." Weihe added that he has noticed a relatively new trend of Chinese collectors showing up in the salesrooms of Indian art auctions.

On Thursday, Christie's held a two-part single-collector auction called "A Connoisseur's Vision: Property from the Xu Hanqing Collection," which carried a $7 million total pre-sale estimate. When the final hammer dropped, a stunning $13.1 million of art had been sold, with 84 percent selling both by lot and by value. The winning bid for "Poems in a Cursive Script" by Zhu Xi was an impressive $1.8 million. Also finishing much higher than estimated was a large white jade archaistic vase and cover, which was bid up to $2.7 million — nearly three times  its $750,000-1 million estimate — during the Thursday afternoon auction of jade carvings from "an important European collection." That round achieved a sell-through rate of 75 percent by lot and 92 percent by value. The majority of the top ten lots for each sale went to Asian buyers, according to Christie's. 

Christie's did have one disappointing sale, however: that of Japanese and Korean art. Many of the highlight lots went unsold, though a painting by the Korean artist Park Sookeun, "Returning from the Market" (1965), soared above its $400,000-500,000 estimate to fetch $722,500. Only 59 percent sold by lot and 41 percent by value.

Rounding out the week, Bonhams on Tuesday sold an 18th-century Tibetan figure of Padmasambhava (known as the second Buddha in some parts of Tibet) for just over $100,000 (est. $60,000-80,000). But the results of the marquee sessions were clear in showing Christie's to have paired the most attractive lots with the most enticing estimates.