A Chinese face or two in the crowd at the world’s auction houses often means one thing: the gavel will fall on a price far beyond the seller’s wildest dreams.

Fierce bidding by Chinese buyers for a vase at a small London auctioneer in November, for example, drove the price up nearly 40 times beyond its estimate, from around $1.9 million to $70 million.

It was the highest price ever paid for a Chinese artwork sold at auction and equivalent to a huge lottery win for the sellers, who found the 18th Century Qianlong Emperor-era piece while clearing out a house after a relative died.

Christie’s notched up the biggest sales figures in the art auction industry’s history last year, the firm announced Thursday, with record global sales of $5 billion.

And Chinese collectors continued to increase their prominence in the auction rooms as the number of buyers from China, Taiwan and HK accounted for a fifth of the total.

Sales in 2010 were up 53 percent with the firm selling more than half the world’s works over $50 million, including the most expensive painting ever to sell at auction: Pablo Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust” for $106.5 million.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 1977 Peugeot 504 has received a one million dollar bid after the car was put on an international auction Saturday

Proceeds from the sale of the Peugeot 504 will go to a fund for homes for disabled people and to needy.

Earlier, officials had said they hoped the car would fetch more than the $2,000 such cars usually sell for in Iran.

Christie’s International, the world’s leading art business, has launched its new, free App designed specifically for users of the Apple iPad.

The new App takes users on a tour of Christie’s upcoming auctions and enables “at a glance” browsing of hundreds of luxury items and objects to be sold in the company’s salerooms worldwide.

Christie’s offers over 450 auctions annually in over 80 categories, including all areas of fine and decorative arts, jewelry, photographs, collectibles, wine, and more.

Christian Dior wins bid for one of the most famous fashion images of all time: Richard Avedon’s 1955 photo “Dovima With Elephants”.

According to WWD, the image of Dovima, dressed in a Dior evening gown at the Cirque d’Hiver, went for 841,000 euros, ($1,148,910).

This sale more than doubles Avedon’s previous auction record of $457,000 for “Marilyn Monroe, May 6, 1957, New York City,” set in 2008.

An Andy Warhol canvas of a black-and-white Coke bottle has sold for $35.36m at an auction in New York.

Sotheby’s said Coca-Cola [4] (Large Coca-Cola) “is a landmark in the artist’s creation of his pop art style”.

Organizers reportedly whet the appetite of live bidders by serving small bottles of soda pop as guests mingled ahead of the New York sale.