Sanyu (Chang Yu) - Chrysanthemums in a Glass Vase 1950s

Sanyu (Chang Yu) - Chrysanthemums in a Glass Vase 1950s

Chrysanthemums in a Glass Vase 1950s
75x92cm oil on masonite
Sold for: USD 10.55 million
Auction house: Christie's, Hong Kong
Sale date: 30 May 2015
Seller: Private Collection
Buyer: Anonymous buyer

From Christie's:
In the late 1920s, when Sanyu was invited to produce some copper-plate etchings, he found their extreme simplicity of line beautiful and intriguing; the lines and the empty spaces of the etchings, their opposing yin-yang relationships, helped produce surprising breakthroughs in his work in oil. For the Chinese, white represents simplicity and purity, the complete transformation of consciousness. When the blackness of ink is combined with white, then it represents the original, natural source of that purity.