October, at the pre-exhibition of the Beijing Poly Autumn Auction, an anonymous scroll painting depicting royal hunting during the Yuan Dynasty appeared for a starting price of 30,000,000 RMB (about 4,040,000 USD). The painting, Autumn Hunting of Yuan (Dynasty) People, will be auctioned at the evening sale as one of the VIP items in late November.
Few people remember it from 18 years ago. On June 1st, 1961, at Christie’s New York, the hand scroll was bought for 1,870,000 USD by My Humble House, an antique house in Taiwan. The price set an all time record for Chinese paintings on the international market, a record that was untouched for six years.
Why was this anonymous scroll valued so highly when artist's fame has so much weight in the art market?
Autumn Hunting of Yuan (Dynasty) People, 59cm by 1240cm, is a feature painting by the joint efforts of court painters. In the Yuan Dynasty, it was customary for the emperor and his officials to travel from Beijing (Yuan's capital) to Shangdu (today's Inner Mongolia) in April of the lunar calendar, where the emperor spent four months dealing with the border issues, meeting foreign ambassadors and hunting. The huge scroll portrays royal families and troops hunting, camping and banqueting.
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