SHANGHAI: A local court heard testimony yesterday in renowned Hong Kong economist Steven NS Cheung's suit against the late artist Chen Yifei's widow and two sons.

Cheung, 72, told Shanghai No 1 Intermediate People's Court that Chen, once the most highly prized Chinese painter, owed him money and agreed to pay him back with his paintings.

"But he did not," the economist said.

Cheung said he wanted his paintings. But the defendants claimed that they had neither heard about the agreement, nor seen any of the paintings in question.

Chen, who died in 2005 at the age of 49, set a price record when one of his works sold at auction for more than 7 million yuan ($925,000). The market price for Chen's paintings has increased to at least 4 million yuan.

Cheung claimed that Chen Yifei had borrowed HK$1.5 million ($192,000) from him in the 1990s for a real estate investment. On January 8, 1995, the two signed an agreement in which Chen promised to pay Cheung back with six paintings.

"Together with another painting Cheung was promised earlier, Chen owed Cheung seven paintings in total," the agreement said.

It is also stipulated in the agreement that the paintings must feature a coastal town or landscape with sunshine. All the paintings were to have been handed over to Cheung on December 31, 2005. If Chen failed to hand them before the deadline, he had to pay Cheung HK$300,000 for each.

But Chen did not meet the deadline and actually borrowed more money from Cheung. The two agreed to settle the new loan with three more paintings, which were supposed to be handed to Cheung no later than March 30, 2006. Chen also missed that deadline, according to Cheung's court filing.

In 1998, Cheung and his wife visited Chen at his work studio. In the presence of Chen and his driver, Cheung chose six half-completed paintings of Chen and signed his name on the back of them.

"I wrote my name in the top left corner on the back of each of the six paintings," Cheung said. "We agreed that the paintings would be when they were done."

In 2001, Chen informed Cheung through a friend that he had completed the paintings and asked him to pick them up.

"But I did not have a proper place to display the paintings at that time," he said.

Chen died on April 10, 2005, and most of his works are on display for sale in a gallery in the UK.

Chen had a son, Chen Ling, from a former marriage and another son, Chen Tian, with his second wife, Song Meiying.

Zhang Liting, the attorney representing Song Meiying and Chen Tian, said they will hand over the paintings once Cheung provided evidence to prove which of the paintings belong to him and where they are. No verdict was reached yesterday.

(China Daily 08/02/2007 page4)