The art world shook on May 11th when apainting by Pablo Picasso was sold for $179m at a Christie's sale in New York to anunidentified bidder—the highest sum ever paid for an artwork at auction. But aSot eby's auction on May 5th, also in New York, caused a bigger tremor At thatsale, bidders from mainland Ch ina agreed to pay a combined total of $116m for works by Vincent van Gogh, ClaudeMonet and another by asso. It was striking evidence of China emerging as anew source of demand for the European masters, and fits buyers' willingnessto bid handsomely.
艺术世界在5月11号发生大地震,当时在纽约克里斯蒂拍卖会上毕加索的一幅画作被匿名买家以1.79亿美元购得;这是有史以来拍卖会上一件艺术品所拍出的最高价格。但是在5月5号也是在纽约举行的苏富比拍卖会上来自中国大陆的竞标者们以1.16亿美元购得梵高,莫奈以及另外一件毕加索的作品。这表明中国成为了欧洲大师作品的新买家，也 表明了中国的竞标者愿意花大价钱购买。

Two of the successful bidders at Sotheby'swere movie moguls: Wang Zhongjun, the chairman of Huayi Bro rs Media, one ofChina's largest film companies, who took Picasso's "Femme au Chignon dans unFauteuil" f $29.9m; andWang Jianlin, the chairman of Dalian Wanda, a property conglomerate, who boughtMonet's "B n aux Nymphos, les Rosiers" for $20.4m. Mr Wang was recently named as Asia's richestman by Forbes ma ne. He already has dozens of European works andmore than 1,000 Chinese ones. Guo Qingxiang, who advis im on his artpurchases, says the Wanda boss plans to exhibit the Western collection when itis large enoug
苏富比的这次拍卖会上，有两名成功竞标者是电影大腕：华谊兄弟公司的主席王中军，这是中国最大的电影公司之一,他以2990万美元的价格买下了毕加索的《盘发髻女子坐像》；还有就是万达的王健林以2040万美元买下了莫奈的《睡莲池与玫瑰》。王健林已经拥有几十幅欧洲作品，还有1000多个中国作品。作为王健林的艺术品购买参谋，郭庆祥说王健林打算在拥有足够多艺术品后进行展览。

The number of mainland Chinese bidding fornon-Chinese art at Sotheby's auctions doubled from 2010 to 2014: some 650 ofthem paid a total of more than $410mfor non-Chinese pieces from Sotheby's during that period. But Mr Guo is notalone in saying that Chinese buyers are sometimes unsophisticated. If sottovoce sniping is any measure of the maturity of an art market, maybe Chinahas already arrived.
2010年到2014年间，在苏富比拍卖会上竞拍非中国艺术品的大陆买家数量增加了一倍：在这期间所举办的苏富比拍卖会上，有650名大陆买家在非中国艺术品上总共花费了4.1亿美元。但是并非只有郭先生才认为中国买家有时候是未经世故的。如果低声诽谤是一个艺术市场成熟度的衡量标准的话，那么中国或许已经到了这个点。