Global financial turmoil has caught up with the red-hot Chinese contemporary art market as bidders failed to buy top-flight paintings at a major Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong.

For the past few years, auctioneers in London, New York and Hong Kong have reported fierce interest in Chinese contemporary paintings, with prices often setting records.

But in Sotheby's fall sale of Asian contemporary artwork -- a twice-yearly barometer of market sentiment among the world's top collectors -- 19 of 47 prominent works went unsold Saturday and others barely hit low estimates.

"The results weren't at all ideal, and prices of contemporary Chinese art seem to have reached a peak now," said Jackson See, a Singaporean buyer.

Works by feted artists Zhang Xiaogang, Yue Minjun, Liu Wei and Liao Jichun failed to sell. Zeng Fanzhi's "After the Long March Andy Warhol arrived in China" attracted bids far short of its 20 million Hong Kong dollar (US$2.57 million) reserve price.

"It is not surprising that there will be some leveling off, which is what we also experienced...in addition to some estimates which were overly optimistic," said Evelyn Lin, the head of Sotheby's contemporary Asian art department.

The top lot at the Sotheby's sale was Zhang Xiaogang's "Bloodline: Big Family No.1," which fetched HK$23.06 million (US$2.97 million).

This contrasts sharply with an earlier auction in May hosted by Christie's, which garnered US$9.7 million for its top lot -- a large Zeng diptych of eight masked youths -- an auction record for an Asian contemporary artwork.

"Today's results aren't acceptable, they're very poor. The contemporary Chinese art market has raced ahead too quickly and now people can't prop it up anymore," said Alex Chan, a bidder from Taiwan at the auction.

Major works by other Asian artists, including Japan's Takashi Murakami and India's Subodh Gupta, went unsold.

There were however some bright spots, with strong demand for lower priced, Southeast Asian artists, like Ronald Ventura of the Philippines, whose "Nesting Ground" made more than 10 times its presale estimate, fetching US$280,588.

Indonesian artist I. Nyoman Masriadi's sarcastic, comic-book style painting "Sorry Hero, I Forgot" of a Batman and a Superman fetched $HK4.82 million, a world auction record for the artist and world record for contemporary Southeast Asian art.

Takashi Muradami