Chinese nouveau-riche are racing across the globe to buy art. More than 250 Chinese are expected in Stuttgart, Germany, next week where old European private collections will go under the hammer.

"Altogether buyers from China will be more numerous than what we can see in the salesroom, because Chinese buyers are now bidding via the Internet, just like in the salesroom," said Uwe Jordan, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Stuttgart-based Nagel Auctions.

Nagel, the largest auction house in Germany, will present Chinese art from four important private collections in Europe at its annual autumn auction of Asian art between November 14 and 16.

A preview is to take place in Stuttgart between November 10 and 13.

The four collections are an old German collection of trade paintings and export porcelains related to the tea and silk trade, a European collection of Chinese jades and bronzes, a German collection of Chinese modern paintings and a European collection of 46 porcelains from the Yuan (1279-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

Highlights of the collections include an underglazed copper-red pear-shaped ceramic vase and a blue-and-white ceramic vase from the Ming Dynasty, a coral-ground ceramic bowl and famille rose yellow ground bowl from the royal collection of the Qing Dynasty, and ink paintings by Chinese artists Fu Baoshi (1904-1965) and Zhang Daqian (1899-1983).

"Most of the Chinese art we can offer is unknown in the market. This is the most important advantage of Nagel over Christie's and Sotheby's and Chinese auction houses," said Nagel's CEO Jordan.

"If you buy in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing, you will see so many materials that have been on the market before that they become less attractive," he said.

"But if you buy in Germany, we all know that there has been a long tradition of co-operation and there were so many German families living in the late 19th century in China. So they cannot be fakes," he added.

(China Daily November 10, 2005)