Committed Chinese buyers are shaking up the art auction market worldwide

Zhang says she gets real pleasure out of investing her money in art.

"Money in itself has no life but the arts do. I think it is a pleasure to exchange inanimate money for living arts. If I see something I like, I will be determined to get it. Whether I am interested in what I am buying is the only real criteria when I make a purchase."

Europeans remain keen to get a piece of this buying action. In Hong Kong's Central district on Queen's Road, Edouard Malingue, son of the founder of the famous Galerie Malingue in Paris, opened a gallery in September.

One of its first events was a Picasso exhibit showing 40 works ranging from $330,000 to $15 million, which attracted a lot of interest from mainland buyers. The gallery will specialize in 20th Century European and American art.

Edouard Malingue, son of the founder of Galerie Malingue in Paris. Photo Provided to China Daily

"I looked at opening a gallery in London or New York but Asia seemed a much stronger market than in the West. It was also a place with fewer galleries and wasn't somewhere where everything had been previously done by someone else in the art world," says Malingue.

"I thought about locating in Singapore but Hong Kong was closer to the mainland. I discarded either Shanghai or Beijing because the administration is cumbersome and the import taxes are really frightening."

Malingue says a number of people from the mainland attended his Picasso exhibition.

"They tended to ask interesting questions about Picasso and his creative process. Some were very specific about investment and the potential return they could get after six months, a year or two years," he says.

The gallery owner says a sign any market was taking off was when you had interior decorators at art fairs and exhibitions.

"In places like Miami and New York they are everywhere and you are beginning to see that here. I am confident of the decision to have a gallery here to cater for the Chinese," he says.

Within the art market in Hong Kong there is a sense of anticipation about Art Hong Kong, the annual art fair held in May. One of the key questions again this year will be whether there will be more interest from the mainland.

Last year's event attracted 46,000 visitors, up 65 percent on the previous year and works by the leading contemporary artists such as Damien Hirst were sold to Chinese collectors.

Jonathan Stone, Asia managing director of Christie's. Photo Provided to China Daily

"There was certainly an upswing in the VIP attendance from the mainland and there were a number of high profile sales," says Magnus Renfrew, the fair's director.

"I think the Chinese market is going to play an increasingly important role over the next five to 10 years."

"When people have their houses, their yachts and their cars, they begin to look for other ways to express their wealth."

Renfrew says the number of Chinese people buying art at the moment can be exaggerated.

"At the moment it is a relatively small pool of buyers and collectors but as time moves on, it will have a trickledown effect and impact every level of the market."

The holy grail for many of the international auction houses is to be able to hold their own auctions on the mainland.

At present, Chinese law prevents them from doing so, although many exhibit works there that are eventually sold in Europe or the United States.

Christie's, which has representative offices in Beijing and Shanghai, has a licensing arrangement with the Beijing auction house Forever which can hold auctions using its brand.

Jonathan Stone, the |Hong Kong-based Asia managing director of Christie's, says he believes China is the right place to invest.