An ongoing cultural shift towards the “Medici” buyer phenomenon – evoking the taste and wealth of the Renaissance Medici dynasty - drove sales in Asia up 48 per cent to a record £296 million ($482.5 million) between January and June of this year.

“Record results in Hong Kong reaffirm it as a growing global art hub and Asia as the fastest growing art market in the world,” said the privately-owned London-based auctioneer in a statement. Hong Kong is now Christie’s third largest sales hub in the world, after overtaking Paris last year.

“Asian buyers led the sales activity and continue to demonstrate a growing passion and appetite for artworks, precious objects and wines of the highest quality,” the auction house added.

Meanwhile, sales in Continental Europe and the UK rebounded nearly quarter on last year to £803.4 million. However a reduction of business in the US took shine off the otherwise positive results, with sales down 13 per cent on last year to £577.7 million.

Rising Demand For Asian Fine Art

The appetite for art from Asia is growing. Christie’s Asian Art sales – auctions of Asian art around the world – broke records in every location.  In New York, the Asian Art auctions surpassed the previous total by nearly $40 million – setting the highest total for any series of Chinese Art Sales in New York and achieving record prices in every category, from Indian and Southeast Asian Art , Japanese and Korean Art and South Asian Modern & Contemporary Art, through to Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art in Hong Kong, where sales were up two thirds year on year.

Contemporary art, in particular works by Andy Warhol, was in demand. The highest sale in the first half was a Warhol self-portrait sold for $38.4 million. Contemporary art fetched £431.1 million, a 40 per cent increase on 2010. This surpassed 2008 levels, though did not topple 2007’s record.

Widening Buyer Pool

A widening group of collectors are starting to participate in the art market as global wealth spreads. Sales to new clients were up 14 per cent, led by new buyers in the traditional markets.

Continental Europe, the US and the UK continued to account for the highest proportion of new clients -78 per cent of new clients were from those regions in the first half of 2011, said Christie’s.

Greater China, (Mainland China. Hong Kong and Taiwan) accounted for 13 per cent of new client registrations in the period, an increase of a fifth year on year.

Collector Trends Change

The auction house said collectors are increasingly participating across multiple categories, for example across wine, fine art and antiques. Christie’s calls this type “The Medici Collector” – a client who pursues the very best works across multiple categories, eras and nationalities. This is something that will grow in future, predicted Christie’s.

For example, buyers in greater China increased their spend on furniture sales and Old Master Painting sales. This year Michelangelo Buonarroti’s A male nude, seen from behind (recto); Studies of male nudes (verso) sold to a private Asian buyer for £3.2 million.

Also, buyers from Greater China spent more on wine and Asian Art globally.

Private sales were one of the segments registering the biggest rises, with sales totals at £286.7 million, up 57 per cent on the first half of 2010.

The internet is also changing the way people buy art. Registrants of online bidding grew by 27 per cent over the first half, while the total value of lots sold online rose a quarter year on year to £37.5 million. Now nearly one fifth of Christie’s clients bid online.