Traditional Asian Art Gains Ground as Younger Collectors Turn to Antiquities
A small Qing dynasty bronze incense burner bought for £1,000 has become a telling symbol of where parts of the art market may be headed. Zhaobo Yang, a 29-year-old London-based sculptor and collector, acquired the palm-sized object in April as his first Chinese antiquity after five years of study. He now uses it every day, burning agarwood incense in it, and says he wanted to begin with something he could fold into ordinary life.
Yang’s approach reflects a broader shift among Millennial and Gen-Z buyers who are looking beyond contemporary art for objects with historical weight, material presence, and a clearer sense of continuity. Coming from a family that collects Chinese classical paintings and calligraphy, he describes antiquities as part of his cultural inheritance and as a source for his own practice. He also frames collecting as a long view: “collecting the future,” in his words, means finding traces of what endures in older works.
The market data supports that change in taste. ArtTactic’s March China Art Market Report, which tracked auction activity at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips in Hong Kong, showed that overall auction sales in the city fell 2.2% in 2025, from $1.4 billion to $1.38 billion. Yet traditional works of art moved sharply in the opposite direction, rising 32.4% year-on-year from $389 million to $515 million. Fine art, meanwhile, contracted 32.5%, dropping from $548 million to $370 million.
Traditional Asian art accounted for 37.2% of Hong Kong’s overall auction sales in 2025, surpassing fine art’s 26.7% for the first time since 2017. Hong Kong remains the category’s center of gravity, responsible for more than 80% of global sales, even as the market extends to London, New York, and Paris.
Recent auction results suggest the momentum is not isolated. Christie’s Chinese works of art sale in New York during Asia Art Week brought in more than $34 million, up more than 50% from a year earlier. In Hong Kong, Christie’s spring Asian Art Week sales totaled HK$872.2 million ($111.3 million), a 54% increase and the house’s strongest spring total since 2018. Chinese ceramics and works of art across three sales reached HK$613 million ($78 million), the highest seasonal total since 2017.
Sotheby’s also expanded the category’s reach, including Asian art in its Hong Kong Modern and contemporary evening sale for the first time at the end of March. Its May Asian works of art series totaled HK$630 million ($80.5 million), with 12 works selling for more than HK$10 million each. China Guardian Hong Kong posted HK$330 million ($42 million), its highest seasonal total since the house opened in the city in 2011, and recorded HK$578 million ($73.8 million) in the category for 2025, up 40% year-on-year.
For dealers and auction specialists, the appeal is partly intellectual and partly practical. Marco Almeida, head of Chinese ceramics and works of art at Christie’s Asia Pacific, said the category offers long-term resilience, historical depth, and a measure of certainty that can feel more grounded than the speculative end of contemporary art. Christie’s said more than 80% of its bidders came from Asia Pacific, with the rest from the US and EMEA.
The numbers suggest that traditional Asian art is no longer a niche refuge. For a younger generation of collectors, it is becoming a serious field of study, a source of identity, and, increasingly, a place to put money with conviction.
