Chinese art

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Pair of Porcelain Jars Sells for $12.5M

Rare Ming dynasty jars with covers smash the $1M Sotheby's estimate

(Newser) - A pair of beautiful ceramic jars dating back to China's Ming dynasty were expected to sell for around $1 million at a Sotheby's auction in London on Wednesday. But the bids kept climbing, and when the hammer finally fell, the 16th-century artifacts had topped the $12 million mark....

$35 Bowl Found at Yard Sale Sells for Eye-Popping Amount

It's more than the $500K Sotheby's valued it at

(Newser) - It was eye-popping enough that an old bowl picked up for $35 at a Connecticut yard sale last year ended up dating to China's Ming dynasty of the 15th century. Ditto that Sotheby's valued the bowl at up to $500,000. But things got crazier on Wednesday when...

They 'Didn't Like' the Vase. Then They Learned Its Value

Attic find from Qing Dynasty could fetch up to $850K

(Newser) - It's not $136 million in art , but it's not an ex-boyfriend , either. Rather, the latest attic find is a perfect condition Chinese vase from the 18th-century Qing dynasty. Its owners took the vase, reportedly made for the Qianlong Emperor, to be appraised at Sotheby's three months ago...

Family Sells $3 Bowl for $2.2M
 Family Sells $3 Bowl for $2.2M 
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Mar 24, 2013 9:43 AM CDT

Family Sells $3 Bowl for $2.2M

1K-year-old Chinese bowl found at garage sale, sold at Sotheby’s

(Newser) - One lucky New York family sold a tiny Chinese bowl this week for $2,224,997 more than they paid for it: $3, at a garage sale six years ago. The bowl, which measures roughly 5.5 inches in diameter, sat in the unnamed family's home for years; eventually,...

Rare Chinese Artifacts Stolen in Museum Heist

18 items swiped in $30M Cambridge raid

(Newser) - A gang who broke into a Cambridge University museum after hours made off with some small but incredibly valuable Chinese artifacts. The 18 items stolen, most of them made of jade, were worth close to $30 million in total, the Daily Mail reports. The items, including a 16th-century carved buffalo,...

Antiques Roadshow Makes $1.5M Find
 Antiques Roadshow
 Makes $1.5M Find 
in case you missed it
Jul 30, 2011 7:00 PM CDT

Antiques Roadshow Makes $1.5M Find

Chinese rhino cups break show's record

(Newser) - An Oklahoma man has shattered Antiques Roadshow records with a set of Chinese teacups carved from rhinoceros horn. The show's experts appraised the cups, believed to be from the late 17th or early 18th century, at between $1 million and $1.5 million, making them the most valuable antiques...

Chinese Police Beat, Detain Artist at Earthquake Trial

(Newser) - Ai Weiwei, China's leading artist and a prominent critic of the country's government, said yesterday he was beaten and detained when he tried to testify at a civil rights advocate's trial. Ai told the New York Times that dozens of police officers barged into his hotel room in Chengdu, the...

China Censors Artist Leading Quake Inquiry

Police stake out whistleblower's studio, shut down blog

(Newser) - The Chinese artist who has made investigating the deaths of children in the Sichuan earthquake a personal crusade is facing a government crackdown, reports the CBC. Ai Weiwei's widely read blog has been deleted, and plainclothes police officers are staking out his studio in Beijing. Ai has relaunched his blog...

Chinese Museums Confound Western Expectations

(Newser) - These days China feels "both older and newer than any place on the planet," writes  New York Times art critic Holland Cotter. And nowhere is that tension more palpable than in the country's museums, which use antiquities from the millennia-old civilization in service of a rising world power....

Meet China's First Global Pop Star

Or at least, that's what Sa Dingding hopes to become

(Newser) - China may be storming the world right now, but it’s never had good luck with pop starts. That could change with Sa Dingding, a half-Mongolian singer/songwriter, who sings entirely in Tibetan over a velvety mix of traditional instruments like the zither and modern electronica. Universal’s hoping the whole...

The Man Behind the Smile
The Man Behind the Smile
Nov 14, 2007 5:38 PM CST

The Man Behind the Smile

Chinese artist takes New York with his signature troubling grin

(Newser) - It's contemporary Chinese art's most indelible image—the smile so huge it becomes false, accusatory—and it belongs to Yue Minjun, the artist who uses the grinning self-portraits, often many of them, in his paintings. The New York Times chats with Yue, who is enjoying his first US show in...

Can Chinese Art Stay Hot?
Can Chinese Art Stay Hot?
Apr 20, 2007 12:35 PM CDT

Can Chinese Art Stay Hot?

It's all the rage in Europe, but will Chinese-themed art lose its market power?

(Newser) - After a year of high excitement and higher prices, Chinese artists are hot at influential European fairs. But the bubble may have grown too fast, and Portfolio's Alexandra Wolfe reports on speculation that it's about to burst. One curator says Chinese art is "a consumer category, not a collector...

12 Stories