Crazy Sotheby's auction week: All fine art and wine must go! (For 3/4 of a billion dollars)

According to the Luxist, Sotheby's nearly sold out its entire 1,010 lots of fine wine on auction this past Saturday, earning well above projected figures with a take of HK$61.5 million. Hong Kong is now atop the world's biggest wine markets, ahead of London and New York.

It's hardly a surprise. Since the government repealed wine duties last year, Hong Kong has been rising in the wine world, buoyed by mainland Chinese buyers. Last Saturday's wines were sold mostly to bidders from the mainland, with non-Asians accounting for only one percent of sales.

The wine sell-off was the first of a week of Sotheby's auctions at the Convention and Exhibition Center. The next few days will see up for bid 2,300 lots of contemporary art, antiques and gems. The estimate for the festivities ranges as high as HK$780 million.

Tomorrow's "20th Century Chinese Art Autumn Sale 2009" will offer some of the most celebrated Chinese artists of the last century. Out of the 60 lots, valued at an estimated HK$81 million, it's Sanyu's monumental work "Lotus et Poissons Rouges" that bidders are most looking forward to. Meanwhile some of the most expensive works of the week will make their appearance at the "Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings" auction, also tomorrow: "Two Women on a Beach" and "Tahiti" by Adrien Jean Le Mayeur Demerpres (HK$1.4-2 million), "Magnificent Horses" by Lee Man Fong (HK$1.5-2.5 million), and "Co Gai Voi Khan Quang Co Xanh (Girl with Green Scarf)" by Vietnamese artist Le Pho (HK$800,000-1.2 million).

See Sotheby's full auction calendar for more details.