A painting by Chinese artist Sanyu fetched a record HK$42.1 ($5.4 million) at a Hong Kong auction as bidders fought for lots, betting that the worst of Asia’s art-market slump is over.

Of the 38 lots offered last week at Christie’s International’s top selection of Asian art, 34 sold, raising a combined HK$181.7 million, according to the London-based auction house.

That’s about twice the company’s presale estimate, said Kate Malin, a Christie’s spokeswoman.

Christie’s is offering a rare, 100-million-year-old petrified shell of an extinct Canadian marine creature.

This fossilized ammonite is expected to fetch $70,000 at an auction next week in France.

The fossil has naturally occurring iridescent colors created when the original shell substance turned into a mineral called aragonite.

A small brown leather armchair once owned by Yves Saint Laurent has reportedly sold for £19.4 million (nearly $28 million), making it the most expensive piece of 20th-century design to ever be auctioned.

The armchair, by Irish designer Eileen Gray was only expected to reach around £3 mllion at Christie’s in Paris. It was bought by specialist Paris art gallery Robert and Cheska Vallois.

The unique piece - known as the “dragons’ armchair because of the ornate sculptures on its sweeping armrests - was created between 1917 and 1919 by Miss Gray.

Cai Mingchao, a Chinese antique collector and an adviser to the National Treasures Fund, said he placed the winning bid for the two Qing bronzes auctioned in Paris last week and won’t be paying.

The National Treasures Fund is a group backed by the Chinese Ministry of Culture that pools donations to retrieve relics abroad.

Christie’s had proceeded with the sale of the Qing bronzes, severed from a water clock by marauding British and French troops from the Summer Palace in 1860, despite protests from China’s art advocacy groups, patriots and the foreign ministry.

The private collection amassed by the fashion designer and his partner Pierre Berge is considered one of the finest in the world.

Labeled the “sale of the century” by Christie’s, it will include over 700 lots with an estimated total value of €200 million to €300 million ($255 million to $380 million).

Berges and Saint Laurent met in 1958 and set themselves the goal of buying the best paintings and sculptures they could lay their hands on.

A rare manuscript of a speech by Abraham Lincoln calling on the country to unite amid civil war in 1864 sold at auction Thursday for 3.4 million dollars.

The sale, held at Christie’s in New York on the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, was a record for a US historical manuscript, according to the auction house, and inside the three to four million dollar estimate.

In the November 10, 1864 speech, made shortly after he won re-election, Lincoln wrote: “Now that the election is over, may not all, having a common interest, reunite in a common effort, to save our common country?” Source: AFP