In May 2007, “The Sisters (Grand Family No. 7),” an oil painting by Zhang Xiaogang, sold for $1.16 million at Christie’s New York. Last month, it went under the hammer there again — this time for $722,500.

That sale sent mixed signals. The 27 percent price fall mirrored the overall state of the contemporary art market; still, bidding was active, and the painting came through as the top lot of the afternoon’s offering of postwar and contemporary art, beating works by Damien Hirst, Keith Harding and Richard Prince. After its initial collapse, as the economic crisis struck, the Chinese contemporary market may be bottoming out.

At the Christie’s Hong Kong spring auctions, also last month, 34 of 38 lots offered in an evening sale of Asian contemporary and Chinese 20th-century art sold for a total $19.9 million, more than double the low end of the pre-sale estimate — which was pitched conservatively to avoid scaring off possible bidders.

The two top lots, works by the 20th-century masters Sanyu and Zao Wou-Ki, together raised 44 percent of the total. Still, Chinese contemporary artists did better than some feared, said Anders Petterson, managing director of ArtTactic, an art market research company, raising a total of $4.94 million against a low-end estimate of $4.52 million.

While the $19.9 million total was a fraction of the $31.47 million achieved in equivalent evening sales a year earlier, “the success of the evening sale showed that the Asian art market could be weathering the downturn better than its Western counterpart,” Mr. Petterson said, comparing the outcome with mediocre results at the London contemporary art sales in February and the New York sales in May.

The decision of the Hong Kong sale managers to sharply cut estimates and merge contemporary Asian with Chinese 20th-century art “seems to have had a positive effect,” he added.

Larger sales the next day showed a similar pattern, with volumes and prices far below the peaks of last year, but with strong buying interest at the lower levels.

“Obviously the market has changed,” said Ingrid Dudek, senior specialist in Asian contemporary art at Christie’s, “but we saw across the board some really solid results, even after you cut out the Chinese modern masters.”

Liu Ye’s 1999 work “Rising Sun” sold for $419,500, more than double its upper estimate of $153,800, while Fang Lijun’s “1994 No. 6” made $593,600, against an upper estimate of $388,800. Both works were fairly small and this may have helped them to hold their value in the current market, Ms. Dudek said.

Still, two of three paintings by Yue Minjun — who was red-hot recently — failed to sell at Christie’s day sale; and at the Phillips Contemporary Art auction in New York in May, Yue’s “Backyard Garden,” a 2005 painting with his signature laughing men, estimated at $500,000 to $600,000, also went unsold.

“People are being selective about what’s worth it and what’s not,” Ms. Dudek said. “Collectors are taking a more piece-by-piece approach. His most recent pieces have not sold as well as the older ones. The critical consensus on some of his recent pieces is not 100 percent established, but his earlier pieces come through with much higher prices because they remain fairly established in term of quality and value.”