Southeast Asian art rides new popularity at auction

A painting that once triggered a major art world row after being mistakenly identified as the work of Leonardo da Vinci will go on auction in New York this week.No one really knows who painted "La Belle Ferronniere" and it will go on the block at Sotheby's on Thursday listed as by "a follower of Leonardo da Vinci."The oil painting, depicting a richly dressed woman looking out over her left side, is estimated to sell for 300,000 to 500,000 dollars -- an absolute bargain compared to an authentic da Vinci.

Madonna made a $3.8 million profit after she sold an art work titled “Three Women at the Red Table” by French artist Fernand Léger during a Sotheby's auction in New York on Tuesday.

By Morningstar: By Patricia Oey

A monumental cityscape painting by Austrian artist Egon Schiele on Wednesday smashed the world record after it was sold for £25 million at a London auction."Haeuser mit bunter Wasche (Vorstadt II)" (Houses with Laundry (Suburb II)) eventually went under the hammer at Sotheby's auction house for £24,681,250 ($40 million, 27.6 million euros), almost double the previous auction record for the artist.

A work by Chinese artist Qi Baishi was sold at auction in Beijing at the weekend for 425.5 million yuan ($65.5 million) -- a new record for a contemporary Chinese painting, the auctioneers said Monday.The 1946 painting of an eagle perched on the branch of a pine tree, surrounded by two calligraphy scrolls, measures 100 by 266 centimetres (three by 8.5 feet), the China Guardian auction house said.

A view over Rome painted by artist JMW Turner was sold for 29.7 million pounds in London, setting a new record at auction for the British master."Modern Rome -- Campo Vaccino" was bought Wednesday for the equivalent of 44.9 million dollars or 35.7 million euros at Sotheby's by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the auction house said.The previous auction record for a Turner work was 20.5 million pounds, which was set by "Giudecca, La Donne della Salute and San Giorgio" in April 2006, it said in a statement.

A classical Chinese painting fetched a record price in the United States of nearly three million dollars at auction Tuesday."Two Mynas on a Rock," painted in 1692, sold for 2.994 million dollars, many times more than Sotheby's pre-auction estimate of 400,000-600,000 dollars.The painting sold as part of Asia week auctions for Sotheby's and rival Christie's, with experts eyeing a return to health for a market hit hard during the recession by the 2008-2009 Wall Street crash.

Alberto Giacometti's sculpture "L'Homme qui marche I" was sold for 65 million pounds in London Wednesday, a world record for an art work at auction, said auctioneers Sotheby's.The high price made it "the most expensive art work ever sold at auction," Sotheby's said in a statement.The life-size bronze went for over 65million pounds (104.3 million dollars), beating the previous record set by a Picasso painting "Garcon a la Pipe" which sold for 104.2 million dollars, it said.