CRI听力:Christie's First Auction in Chinese Mainland

Christie's has held its first-ever stand-alone auction on the mainland, taking in some 25-million US dollars through the sale of 40 different lots last night in Shanghai.

CRI's Jordan Lee has more.

Report:

Christie's, which has long operated in Hong Kong, has been organizing its sales here on the mainland since 2005 by authorizing a Chinese auction firm to use its international trademark.

This is because of the strict regulations on setting up a solely foreign-invested auction house.

However, the auction house has now been granted a license to operate independently in China, making it the first international auction house to hold its own branded events on the mainland.

The auction at the Shangri-la Hotel, Jing'an district, Shanghai on Thursday night was its first.

Jonathan Stone is the chair and International Head of Asian Art at Christies.

"I think it is one of the most important steps that the company has taken in almost 250 years of history. It is as important as arriving in America in the 1970s."

The auction included works from both East and West, from Asian Contemporary to European Modern Masters and American Post-War and Contemporary.

Highlights included a contemplative 1963 still-life by Giorgio Morandi, a 1969 work titled "Homme Assis" by Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol's "Diamond Dust Shoes" from 1980.

China has one of the world's largest and fastest-growing markets for art, with Chinese buyers now common at international auctions.

Rebecca Catching, Director of the OV Gallery in Shanghai, says it is a status symbol for Chinese people to buy art at auction.

"They can be basically anyone with money and he wants to show that they a have a bit of status by buying in Auction, they can say this work sold for ah you know two million at Auction, if their friends question their taste they can say, well it was sell for two millions at Auction."

The new license for Christies to hold auctions on its own does come with restrictions that Chinese auction houses don't have.

Christie's is not allowed to sell cultural relics that predate 1911, as the Chinese government considers them vital to this country's cultural heritage.

Fan Ganping is a spokesperson for the Shanghai Auction Industry Association.

"Now Chinese society is still undergoing development. Law and regulation is not perfect and people's awareness of following them is not strong. The government fears if the ban is lifted graves robbery and culture relics smuggling will become more. So the culture relics experts reserved and have concerns. These are very common."

Christie's has over 450 auctions every year around the world.

The auction house found itself in a bit of controversy back in 2009, when two bronze animal heads looted from Beijing's Old Summer Palace in 1860 were put up for auction in Paris.

The bronzes were eventually acquired by French billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault.

They were returned to China in June of this year.

For CRI, I am Jordan Lee.