Asian buyers snapped up Impressionist paintings at Sotheby’s spring auction¹ in New York, buying three of the sale’s top five lots, including a Vincent Van Gogh landscape, and making up about one-third of the $368.3m raised.

亚洲买家在纽约的苏富比(Sotheby’s)春季拍卖会上抢购印象派绘画，买下五大顶级拍品中的三件，包括一幅梵高(Vincent Van Gogh)的风景画，并在3.683亿美元的拍卖总额中占到大约三分之一。

Art collecting has soared in Asia in recent years, mainly led by a new breed of ultra-wealthy Chinese collecting both classical and contemporary pieces and building private galleries in China.

近年艺术收藏在亚洲一下子风靡起来，主要受到新一代中国超富裕收藏家的拉动，他们收集古典和现代作品，并在中国建立私人画廊。

According to a report by the European Fine Art Foundation, China was the world’s joint second largest art market in 2014 with a 22 per cent share of sales, alongside the UK.

根据欧洲艺术基金会(European Fine Art Foundation)的一份报告，中国和英国并列2014年全球第二大艺术品市场，各占22%的销售份额。

Sotheby’s sale, which kicked off the spring auctions², saw 69 lots go under the gavel. An unidentified Asian collector paid $66.3m for Van Gogh’s “L’Allée des Alyscamps” (pictured), a rich-hued depiction³ of an autumnal scene painted in 1888 shortly before the Dutch artist sliced off his ear.

苏富比的这场拍卖会揭开了春季拍卖的序幕，共有69件拍品。一位不愿透露姓名的亚洲收藏家支付6630万美元买下梵高的《阿里斯康的小路》（L’Allée des Alyscamps，见上图），这幅色调丰富的秋季景象画于1888年。画作完成之后不久，这名荷兰艺术家割下了自己的耳朵。

The auction, which included five works by Claude Monet, achieved the second-highest result in Sotheby’s history for any auction of impressionist and modern art. The November 2014 New York sale brought in $422.1m.

本次拍卖包括莫奈(Claude Monet)的五件作品，拍卖总额在苏富比历届印象派和现代艺术拍卖会上排名第二。2014年11月举行的纽约拍卖会达到4.221亿美元的拍卖总额。

The Van Gogh achieved the highest price at auction for a work by the painter since 1998.

上述梵高作品的拍价是这位画家的作品自1998年以来在拍卖会上拍出的最高价。

Chinese buyers — like the Japanese before in the late 1980s — are proving big fans of the Dutch painter.

中国买家——就像上世纪80年代末的日本买家那样——正证明自己是这位荷兰画家的忠实粉丝。

Last November Wang Zhongjun, a Chinese film producer, bought Van Gogh’s “Still Life, Vase with Daisies and Poppies”, for $61.8m, more than its $30m-to-$50m estimate.

去年11月中国电影制片人王中军以6180万美元买下梵高的《静物，插满雏菊和罂粟花的花瓶》(Still Life, Vase with Daisies and Poppies)，远远超出3000万至5000万美元的估价。

“L’Allée des Alyscamps” last sold for $11.8m in 2003. It was first owned by the proprietors⁴ of the café where Van Gogh lodged⁵ in the city of Arles and was later held in a private collection in Japan.

阿里斯康的小路》上一次出售是在2003年，成交价为1180万美元。这幅画作最初的主人是梵高在法国南部阿尔勒市(Arles)寄宿的咖啡馆的业主，后来被日本的一个私人收藏家买下。

For over a third of the works it was the first time they had gone on sale in half a century. Others included one of Claude Monet’s water lilies series of paintings while his 1905 impressionist painting “Nymphéas” sold for $54m.

超过三分之一的作品是半个世纪以来首次拍卖。其它作品包括莫奈的睡莲系列画作之一，他的1905年印象派绘画《睡莲》(Nymphéas)以5400万美元落槌。

Pablo Picasso’s “Femme au chignon dans un fauteuil” went for $29.93m while Marc Chagall’s “Crépuscule ou la maison rouge⁶” was sold for just over $5m.

毕加索(Pablo Picasso)的《Femme au chignon dans un fauteuil》拍得2993万美元，而马克•夏卡尔(Marc Chagall)的《Crépuscule ou la maison rouge》拍得500万美元多一点。

Other artists whose works were included were Paul Klee, Edgar Degas, Wassily Kandinsky and René Magritte.

其它画作出自保罗•克利(Paul Klee)、埃德加•德加(Edgar Degas)、瓦西里•康定斯基(Wassily Kandinsky)和勒内•马格利特(René Magritte)等艺术家之手。