PARIS (AP).- A giant 18th-century Chinese silk scroll painting of a military troop review has been sold at auction for more than euro22 million ($30.8 million), the highest auction price for a Chinese work in France.
The work, found in a Paris attic and sold in Toulouse by auctioneer Marc Labarbe, is one of a series of four works of 17th-century maneuvers that mobilized some 20,000 men.
A Hong Kong collector, who asked to remain anonymous, made the winning bid Saturday of euro22,057,000 after a ferocious bidding war with seven others.
The 24-meter-long (78.7 feet) horizontal scroll was painted around 1748 under Emperor Qianlong.
One of the four scrolls is in the Palace Museum of Beijing, and another was auctioned off in 2008 at Sotheby's in Hong Kong — for $67.86 million.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
