May 26 (Bloomberg) -- A brown-hued oil painting by veteran Chinese artist Wang Huaiqing depicting the classic wooden beams and columns of a Chinese study fetched HK$7.6 million ($974,000), the top lot in a sale of Asian works that saw cautious bidding.

Wang's ``Sanwei Studio'' emerged the surprise star in Christie's International's auction of 20th-century and contemporary Asian artworks in Hong Kong yesterday that offered established names like Yue Minjun and Zao Wou-ki, along with rising stars like Hisashi Tenmyouya. ``Sanwei,'' which had a presale top estimate of HK$2.6 million, describes with linearity the school that the venerated Chinese author Lu Xun attended as a child. Yesterday's auction of 432 works fetched HK$345 million, with 59 lots unsold.

``It's a relatively quiet day,'' said Tian Kai, a Beijing- based art dealer who attended the auction. ``People were looking for gems in a mixed selection of strong and mediocre works.''

About 200 bidders and bystanders attended yesterday evening's contemporary-art sale, leaving most of the 700-odd seats empty. A woman in a dull-green crochet top dozed off at the back of the hall and woke up just in time to bid for her lot; a Taiwanese man with gelled hair, snug jeans and a Louis Vuitton bag left the room in a huff after losing five straight lots.

Paintings by Chinese artists born in the late 1960s and 1970s are by far the best performers of Christie's Asian art auction. At its Saturday sale, painter Zeng Fanzhi's picture of masked figures wearing red scarves, ``Mask Series 1996 No. 6,'' sold for HK$75.4 million, the most for an Asian contemporary artwork. A painting on the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown by Yue, known for his grinning men, sold for an artist record of HK$54.1 million.

`Dark Sky'

At yesterday's auction, Yue's ``Dark Sky,'' which shows a grinning man pointing to his temple with a hand bent like a pistol against a backdrop ominous with heavy rain clouds, sold for HK$6.5 million. Deceased Japanese artist Tetsuya Ishida's ``Decided by Myself,'' an oil-on-wood showing a prostrated man with a back shaped like a washbasin rimmed with opened bottles of prescription drugs, inhalants and cans of beer, sold for HK$5.5 million.

``Japanese contemporary artists are definitely emerging onto the auction scene,'' said Roderic Steinkamp, a New York-based dealer, in an interview at the salesroom. ``The prices of their artworks have visibly spiked at this auction.''

Gun-Wielding Robot

Steinkamp said he likes Tenmyouya's works. Tenmyouya, born in 1966, sold his ``RX-78-2 Kabuki-mono 2005 Version,'' which shows a gun-wielding robot, for HK$4.8 million at the Saturday auction.

``Prices of Chinese contemporary artworks, especially those that contain the five elements: talent, humor, politics, color and `Chineseness,' will continue to rise,'' said Steinkamp. ``But we also have to watch out for the emergence of other Asian works.''

More overseas bidders are competing for Southeast Asian artworks, causing prices to soar, said Yvonne So, Christie's Hong Kong-based spokeswoman. Works by Indonesian artists took seven of the 10 priciest lots at Saturday's sale of Southeast Asian works. The top lot was Hendra Gunawan's ``Kuda Lumping'' fetching HK$5.9 million; I Nyoman Masriadi's ``Sudah Biasa di Telanjangi,'' which means ``Used to Being Stripped'' in Indonesian sold for an artist record of HK$4.2 million, according to Christie's.

At yesterday's sale, recent works by auction favorites like Chinese-born, Paris-based Zao, born in 1920, fetched seven-figure prices, led by ``1-8-97,'' an abstract picture of blues and whites that Christie's says represents Chinese Zen painting. It fetched HK$4.2 million.

Prices include buyer's premium at 25 percent for the first HK$150,000, 20 percent of the amount above HK$150,000 up to HK$4 million, and 12 percent of the sum above HK$4 million.

Yesterday's sale was the second day of Christie's six-day auction of 2,400 gems, paintings and antiques that the company expects would tally HK$1.7 billion.

To contact the reporter for this story: Le-Min Lim in Hong Kong at lmlim@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 25, 2008 15:12 EDT