Chiang Yee by Xu Beihong, 1933

This portrait of the artist and writer Chiang Yee (Jiang Yi) by Xi Beihong was up for sale last year at Bonham’s in New York. It obviously didn’t sell as now it’s being offered by Bonham’s in Hong Kong (for an asking price of US$41K-57K on April 28th here). Sadly Chiang Yee doesn’t fetch serious prices these days, but Xu Beihong does. He’s much appreciated in the PRC and has his own Xu Beihong Memorial Museum in Beijing (which was closed for “refurbishment” when I tried to visit in late 2025). Xu travelled in Europe extensively in the 1930s and visited London in 1933, where Chiang Yee was living in Belsize Park (you can listen to my BBC Radio 3 doc on Chiang, his friends and London here or read the collection of essays on the subject edited by Da Zhang, Paul Bevan and Anne Witchard, Chiang Yee and his Circle).