Chinese art collector Liu Yiqian shook the art world with his ultra-expensive purchases and unabashed flair for the flamboyant. It is quite easy to picture the taxi driver-turned-billionaire flipping a hard-to-get credit card across the room to the table for the payment of many millions for art. That is exactly what happened, sans the dramatics, when the Chinese tycoon purchased Amedeo Modigliani’s $170 million “Reclining Nude,” or the 1919 painting “Paulette Jourdain” for HK$235 million ($42.5 million) using his American Express Centurion Card.
A few swipes made the former handbag salesman the owner of some very precious paintings. Yiqian and his wife, Wang Wei, are identified as mega collectors who not only set several records at auctions but also amassed an incredible collection over the years. This includes a $36.3 million ancient Chinese porcelain cup and a $45 million 600-year-old silk wall hanging. Their massive collection is displayed not on the walls of their mansion but in three humongous museums in Shanghai and Chongqing in western China.
While the process of buying these collectibles was easy, requiring a swipe [multiple swipes for the multi-million dollar transactions] of the coveted American Express Black Card, selling them was another ballgame altogether, one that the Long Museum owners were adept at, or perhaps just plain unlucky.
Liu and Wang listed 40 artworks for auction by Sotheby’s in Hong Kong in 2023. From Modigliani’s “Paulette Jourdain,” to a René Magritte painting worth $9 million to $12 million and a David Hockney painting boasting an estimated price of $5.4 million to $7 million, it was one for the books.
The auction house, with all of its expertise and experience, stated the auction would be the largest from a single owner that the auction house had held in Asia. What actually happened was unpredictable and, safe to say, an absolute flop! No records were set à la Liu Yiqian, many premium lots were unsold, and the sale total did not meet pre-sale expectations, even after fees. Out of the artists mentioned above, Modigliani and René Magritte sold, but David Hockney was unsold at ‘The Long Journey’ sale. It should be noted that Modigliani’s “Paulette Jourdain” was sold at a loss of a whopping HK$97.2 million.
Two more events were planned in London and New York, which also fared with a dismal fate. According to Artnet, sell-through rates below 80 percent across all three sales led to the sale being called a “bloodbath” and “terrible.” The Chinese tycoon expected to go home with at least $95.4 million, but the hammer total was only $58 million. The auction was held to help two of Liu Yiqian’s businesses that were experiencing financial difficulty.
