Following the money. That is how many people described China's art auction market this spring. After a five-year lag, the country smashed the auction record for Chinese fine arts, with a stunning price that was nearly twice the previous record set at a Christie's sale in London.
 The market can now boast 13 items in the "100 million-yuan ($14.72 million) club", as five items fetched over the 100 million-yuan at Beijing's major spring auctions.

It is notable that four of the 13 were ceramics and a Buddhist statue, which were sold by Christie's and Sotheby's in 2005 and 2006. While the other pieces were all Chinese paintings and calligraphy sold on the mainland over the past year.

A recent report by the Beijing-based Artron Art Market Monitoring Center (AAMI) shows that Chinese painting and calligraphy accounted for nearly 59 percent of the Top 100 Auction Sales of Chinese Fine Art at last year's domestic autumn auctions; and the classical painting category occupied about 49 percent of the market share other than contemporary art, ceramics and other works of art.

"The art market has been growing steadily along with China's economy in the past decades," Ben Kong, international specialist head of Chinese Paintings, Christie's Hong Kong, tells China Daily.

"The Chinese painting market has been as strong as ever, if not stronger."

Despite that, the art market, particularly the contemporary section, has felt the impact of the global financial crisis, though classical Chinese arts has recovered quickly and is proving to be the engine driving the domestic art market.

"Gems of ancient painting and calligraphy with sound provenance and important artistic value are getting scarcer in the market and are highly sought after today, because most of them are in public museums," Guan Yu, an art market analyst for the AAMI, says.

Chinese buyers have surprised the world with their purchasing capacity and private collectors with deep pockets have taken center stage in the salesrooms. Many of them will fly to New York and London to participate in auction sales. As a result, predominant auction houses like Sotheby's have started to advertise on major Chinese art and auction websites such as artron.net.

However, some critics attribute the prosperity of the art market partly to "hot money", which opportunistic buyers have withdrawn from the uncertain housing and stock markets. They fear that the money will result in not only high prices but also bubbles that will burst.

Gong Jixu, a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts says: "People should keep an eye on the blind investors just following trends, because it's hard to tell how long before it will start to impose negative effects on the market."