Guy Ullens, founder of Beijing’s largest private art museum, raised almost 151.7 million yuan ($22.2 million) selling 18 works from one of the world’s biggest collections of Chinese art.

“Rare Birds Painted From Life,” a 5.25 meter (17 feet) long ink scroll painted by the Northern Song Dynasty’s Huizong Emperor (1082-1135), was sold to a Shanghai buyer for 55.1 million yuan at Poly International Auction Co. last night. Chen Yifei’s seminal 1979 oil painting “Thinking of History at My Space” sold for 36.1 million yuan while Zhang Xiaogang’s 2001 “Bloodline Series” went for 15 million yuan and Liu Xiaodong’s 1990 “Showered in Sunlight” sold for 6.1 million yuan before a 12 percent commission.

“This is an endorsement by buyers of the quality of the Ullens Collection,” said Dimitri de Failly, Ullens’ chief representative in China. “The result is another sign that the Chinese auction market is not out of oxygen. Chinese collectors are still present and very passionate about their acquisitions.”

Recent gains in share prices helped 15 of Ullens’ 18 consignments top Poly’s estimates, de Failly said. The Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index has risen 45 percent this year.

Ullens announced a plan to trim his collection in March to raise funds for his namesake Beijing museum, a Bauhaus-style former arms factory. The 74-year-old Belgian industrialist began his collection with classical Chinese scrolls. As he traveled frequently to China to run the family’s sugar business in the mid 1980s, his interest expanded to contemporary Chinese art. The Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation owns about 1,500 paintings, sculptures, art installations and video works.

Emperor, Artist

Proceeds from the Poly sale will go toward financing the operations of the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art in Beijing and fund future acquisitions, the Ullens museum said in March.

“You can obviously promote art by owning a collection, but more dynamically so by supporting an institution such as the UCCA,” de Failly said.

Zhao Ji was an ineffectual monarch. During his reign as Emperor Huizong, he spent so much time painting, practicing calligraphy, collecting antiques, composing poetry and researching Taoist rites that he left his empire to eunuchs and mandarins.

They ran his dynasty into ruin, causing the economy to plummet, which lead to a peasant revolt. Zhao was captured in 1127 and became a prisoner of Jurchens, a tribe of Tungusic people from Manchuria who established the Jin Dynasty in China from 1150 to 1234. The Northern Song Dynasty, of which Zhao was the eighth and final emperor, collapsed.

‘Rarest of Rare’

Still, Zhao was an exceptionally gifted artist. He pioneered a calligraphic font called the shoujinti, using straight thin strokes to convey an elegance that was unrivalled in its era.

His “Rare Birds” scroll, for which Ullens paid a record 23 million yuan in a 2002 Christie’s International auction, captured 20 rare birds in 12 panels. Emperor Qianlong, an avid art collector and no mediocre painter himself, viewed the scroll so often and liked it so much he stamped it with 21 of his imperial seals. The Shanghai collector who bought the scroll declined to identify himself or to comment.

“This is the rarest of the rare, considering its artistic content, scholarship value and its scarcity,” said Michael Wang, chief executive officer of Taipei-based My Humble House Art Space, who estimated the Huizong scroll to fetch between 40 million yuan to 50 million yuan.

Bordeaux Wine Auction

“Leisurely Summers Day” by Wen Zhengming (1470-1559) sold for 3.25 million yuan while Fu Baoshi’s “Orchid Pavilion” sold for 3.2 million yuan, 14 percent above Poly’s high estimate.

In total, Poly sold 284.26 million yuan of art in its evening auction, including the 18 works in the Ullens collection.

Earlier yesterday, Poly sold 8.98 million yuan of Bordeaux, 94 percent of consignments on offer in the first auction of French red wine in China.

A case of 1989 Petrus, rated “Extraordinary” by Robert Parker, sold for 320,000 yuan. An imperiale (6 liter-bottle) of 1979 Chateau Latour, rated at between 80 and 89 points, or “Above Average,” sold for 32,000 yuan, surpassing Poly’s high estimate by 28 percent. A case of 1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild went under the hammer for 320,000 yuan.