Snow-capped Mountains in Switzerland, by Zhang Daqian (Photo provided to China Daily)
Five Drunken Kings Return on Horses, by Ren Renfa (Photo provided to China Daily)
Renowned modern Chinese painter Zhang Daqian's Snowcapped Swiss Mountains (1965) sold for 164.45 million yuan ($23.87 million) at the Beijing Poly 2016 Autumn Auction held in Beijing on Sunday, according to the Poly Auction website.
In addition to the Zhang Daqian work, other modern Chinese paintings sold for relatively high prices as part of the auction house's Important Modern Chinese Painting and Calligraphy Night Auction.
Though the past two years have been a low period for China's auction market, Sunday's sales are a sign that the market may be bouncing back, an industrial insider told Chinese news outlet thepaper.cn on Sunday.
Sunday's auction also included works from contemporary Chinese painters such as Qi Baishi, Huang Binhong and Fu Baoshi.
Antique Chinese paintings also performed well in the Chinese Classical Painting and Calligraphy Night Auction section that night.
Five Drunken Kings Returning on Horses by Ren Renfa, a Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) court official famous for his horse paintings, sold for a stunning 303.6 million yuan.
This marks a new record high for the painter's works at auction.
The painting, once part of the royal collection, was sold by Chinese art dealer C.T. Loo in the 1920s to a US collector.
It was later acquired by Walter Hochstadter, a German-born collector, and sold by his family after Hochstadter's death in 2007, according to a Monday report on People's Daily Online.
