Sanyu's White Chrysanthemum in a Blue and White Jardiniere fetched HK$191 million ($25 million) at a Christie's auction on July 10 in Hong Kong. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Chang Yu, or Sanyu, as the late Chinese-French painter signed his works, was little known during most of his career. He led an impoverished yet carefree life in Paris, where he moved from his native Sichuan province in 1921 and lived until his death in 1966. 

He left a body of work that shows his inheritance of the Chinese cultural spirit and a mastery of Western art traditions and modern-art movements. 

White Chrysanthemum in a Blue and White Jardiniere, one fine example from his oeuvre, which was painted in the 1940s and '50s, sold for HK$191 million ($25 million) at a Christie's auction in Hong Kong on July 10.