Classical Chinese art on the block

Works from several centuries past will be part of Sotheby's semiannual offering of Chinese art, Lin Qi reports.

Eleven classical Chinese paintings and calligraphic pieces, collected by a private library in Zhejiang province over a period from the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) to the time of the Republic of China (1911-49), will go under the hammer in Hong Kong on May 30.

A highlight is The Lotus Sutra, a calligraphic set of seven albums of Buddhism inscriptions written in gold on blue paper by an anonymous artist of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368).