------ Chinesischer Milliardär Kunstsammler Liu Yiqian, Gründer von Lange Museum, stellt vor der Enthüllung der Porzellan Huhn Tasse der Ming Dynastie (13.
--FILE--Chinese billionaire art collector Liu Yiqian, founder of Long Museum, poses before unveiling the porcelain Chicken Cup of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) Emperor Chenghua Period, which was bought for US$36 million at a Hong Kong auction, during a delivery ceremony at an artwork bonded warehouse in Shanghai, China, 17 December 2014. Even as the cost of his quarry pulled away from the $100 million mark, Liu Yiqian remained calm. "I was on the phone with a girl from Christie's Hong Kong who was bidding on my behalf, and she kept dropping the phone because she was so nervous, " Mr. Liu recalled in his Beijing hotel room on Friday (13 November 2015). "I told her, 'Why are you so nervous? I'm the one paying, and I'm not even nervous. Just buy it.'" Thus did Mr. Liu manage to secure "it" - an oil portrait of an outstretched nude woman by the early-20th-century artist Amedeo Modigliani - at a Christie's auction in New York on November 9. During the tense nine-minute sale, he beat out five opponents by offering $170.4 million with fees, the second-highest price ever paid for an artwork at auction. Before last week, Mr. Liu and his wife Wang Wei, both 52, had already made a name for themselves in China's art circles, he in particular as the most flamboyant of the country's small group of major collectors. To many, he is the brash former taxi driver turned billionaire who provoked an uproar when he bought a tiny Ming dynasty porcelain cup for $36.3 million at a Sotheby's auction, and proceeded to be photographed drinking tea from the antique vessel. Ms. Wang is known as the driving force and general director behind the couple's Long Museum, which has two branches in Shanghai. Over more than 20 years, the two have amassed an extensive collection of mostly traditional and contemporary Chinese art, much of it on display in the museums.
