Before London, Paris, and New York take their turn, Hong Kong has opened the autumn marquee season with a lineup of sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s. The positive momentum of the past 18 months continued to build, thanks to a deep range of lots led by the ever-bankable Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose Ancient Scientist (1984) sold for HK$77.0 million ($9.8 million) (all prices include fees) at Christie’s.
The combined evening sale turnover of the two leading auction houses has risen every season since spring 2025 and now stands 62.5 percent above that low. This autumn their evening sales carried a combined presale estimate of HK$1.05 to 1.60 billion ($133.6 to 204.6 million), and their turnover, while well ahead of last year, remained a touch short of the roughly $185.8 million of autumn 2024. Across the full week, including day sales, the two houses realized HK$1.91 billion ($243.7 million).
The previous three seasons were each headlined by a lot above $10 million. Ancient Scientist sold for less than that amount, so the season’s strength rested on depth rather than on any single trophy lot. Records still followed, including Vũ Cao Đàm’s Conversation d’élégantes au jardin (Conversation of Elegant Ladies in the Garden) (1939), which became the most expensive Vietnamese work ever sold at auction. The week also offered the first test of Yayoi Kusama’s market since her death in August. Four of her works came up in the evening sales and met steady demand.
A Milestone for Vũ Cao Đàm at Sotheby’s
Vũ Cao Đàm, Conversation d’élégantes au jardin (Conversation of Elegant Ladies in the Garden), 1939, ink and gouache on silk, 85.6 x 114.5 cm (33¾ x 45⅛ in.). Image: Sotheby’s
Sotheby’s opened the marquee week at Sotheby’s Maison on September 28, 2026, with two evening sales. The Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction realized HK$671.3 million ($85.6 million) against a presale estimate of HK$531.2 to 832.9 million ($67.7 to 106.2 million). The result amounts to nearly double its equivalent sale from a year earlier. The Foujita Lexicon: Works from the Lewis Collection, the house’s first single-artist auction in Asia, added HK$67.2 million ($8.6 million).
Yoshitomo Nara’s Present (1994) led the Evening Auction at HK$71.7 million ($9.1 million), exceeding its estimate of HK$50 to 70 million ($6.4 to 8.9 million). Nara painted the canvas during his years in Germany (1988 to 2000) and before the sale it hung in PSYCHO: Identity Alienation Shadow Duality, an exhibition at the Maison that drew nearly 85,000 visitors in 12 days. Kusama’s Pumpkin (TWPOT) (2010) made HK$60.7 million ($7.7 million) within estimate, and her Infinity-Nets (LHLUJ) (2017) exceeded its high estimate at HK$15.4 million ($2.0 million).
The most significant record of the week went to the Vietnamese painter Vũ Cao Đàm, whose Conversation d’élégantes au jardin drew 14 bids and realized HK$29.0 million ($3.7 million) against an estimate of HK$8 to 19.6 million ($1.0 to 2.5 million). It overtook the previous high for a Vietnamese work, the HK$24.4 million ($3.1 million) paid at Sotheby’s in 2021 for Mai Trung Thu’s Portrait de Mademoiselle Phuong. Vũ Cao Đàm painted this ink and gouache on silk in Paris, where he arrived on a scholarship in 1931 and built his early career on silk scenes of an idealized Vietnam, before a later move to Saint-Paul-de-Vence, near Marc Chagall, turned him toward oil painting. The painting last sold in 2008 for about $262,900.
