Sotheby’s Holds 1st Auction in China, Raises $500,000

Sotheby’s auctioneers racked up nearly $500,000 in sales Sunday at their first auction in China, and organizers said the profits would go to renovate half a mile of the Great Wall.

“It’s super,” said Julian Thompson, auctioneer and chairman of Sotheby’s International, after 73 Chinese and Western works of modern art and rare objects brought in a total of 1.76 million yuan, or about $475,850.

After auction costs of about $100,000 are paid, half the remaining money is to go toward renovating the crumbling Great Wall and half toward saving the Italian city of Venice, which is sinking beneath the waters of the Adriatic Sea.

Danial Vial, a Parisian public relations agent who organized the auction as part of four days of events to benefit the Great Wall and Venice, said enough money was raised to rebuild a kilometer of the wall.

Parts of the wall were built more than 2,200 years ago, and many sections have been reduced by time and warfare to piles of stone.

Some bids were made by telephone from New York and Los Angeles, but most of the purchasers were among more than 200 wealthy foreigners who paid $4,300 each to attend the benefit.

The auction was held in the former imperial palace in a 15th-Century hall where Chinese emperors once worshiped their ancestors.

Several said their purchases would be souvenirs of the unusual benefit, which included a caviar luncheon on the Great Wall, boating at an imperial palace and a gala performance by opera and ballet stars at the Great Hall of the People.

The painting that had been expected to bring the highest price--”China Proverb” by American artist Robert Rauschenberg--went for only $40,387, half its pre-sale estimate.