European collectors like their artists dead, and many buyers are so old they are not far off eternal rest themselves, but China's new generation of art investors are young, extravagant and they'll buy a piece they like even before the paint has dried.

"In China the art that people spent big money on could have been made only yesterday, but in Europe collectors are more traditional - the artists have to be dead or very old indeed," says Uwe Jourdan, chief executive officer of Nagel Auctions, in an exclusive interview with China Business Weekly.

Established in 1920 in Stuttgart, Germany, Nagel held its first art auction in 1922. It is now said to be the largest auctioner of art in Europe.

Sources with the Hong Kong office of London-based Christie's confirm that Nagel's business has boomed over the past two years.

The auctioneer, who declined to give his name, says Nagel has benefited from scandals that have rocked both Christie's and the New York-based Sotheby's .

Unsurprisingly, Nagel's Jourdan is more positive, attributing his company's success to the worldwide fever for Chinese art.

"The reason we have been so successful in the past two years is simply that we are able to offer very high class Chinese materials," he says.

"If you have the materials, you simply don't have to do anything," he adds.

But Jourdan does admit that his company's cornering of the fine Chinese art market is mainly a matter of luck.

"We happened to have the right materials at the right time. If we had them five or six years ago, we would have failed," he says.

Chinese art is of vital importance to the growth of the German company. Turnover generated by Chinese art sales makes up almost half the company's total, even though Chinese art accounts for just a tenth of the lots going under Nagel's hammers.

"Of the about 25,000 items that we offer a year, most are European paintings, furniture and so on. About 5,000 are Asian art, and half of those are Chinese art," says Jourdan.

The high revenue brought by the Chinese art comes along with large costs, he adds.

"We pay a lot for the transportation and insurance of these expensive artworks to and from Asian cities, and for their security during the time they are exhibited at luxurious hotels," says the CEO.

Since 2000 Nagel has been giving public viewings in Beijing and Shanghai twice a year, prior to its spring and autumn auctions in Stuttgart.

"Prices are better when we bring the materials to the collectors directly," says Jourdan.

According to one veteran art dealer, surnamed Li, International auction houses, including Nagel, are more reliable than their Chinese counterparts when it comes to the transportation of arts.

It has been common practice for auction companies in China to rent a train compartment to transport artworks that are uninsured and only guarded by company employees.

"It is sheer luck that the thieves and robbers active on trains are more interested in cash and mobile phones than precious art," says Li.

Although giving public viewings around Asia, Nagel won't be holding any auctions in Asian cities.

Jourdan explains the decision by saying: "Chinese buyers are very active. They are wherever the art is."

About 250 Chinese have been attending sales in Stuttgart since spring 2003, but the company believes there are many more Chinese buyers who choose to bid via the Internet.

Aside from a three-second time lag, bidding online is almost the same as being in the salesroom.

People are willing to go to the trouble of buying from a German company because the works it offers are still unknown on the market.

"If you buy in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing, you will meet so many materials that have been on the market that they become less attractive,' remarks Jourdan.

"But things are different if you buy in Europe. We all know that there were so many European families living in the late 19th century in China and their descendants are willing to sell their collections. These artworks are new to most Chinese collectors, and they cannot be fakes," he adds.

Similar pieces of work have been put up for sale so often at auctions in the China that collectors' are losing confidence in them, according to Beijing-based collector Mei Chuying.

"People ask: `Should I really pay so much for the piece, if its present owner doesn't even want it ?'" he says.

Such a potential crisis in confidence is the result of two factors in the Chinese art market.

One is that a number of collectors in China are speculating on the market instead of loving art, and the other is that Chinese auction companies are all challenged by a shortage of supply of good art and therefore urge collectors to sell what they have just bought, Mei says.

These two factors have also led to big differences between Chinese and European collectors, as Jourdan has observed.

Chinese collectors are much younger than their European counterparts, and spend heavily on young artists and calligraphers, something Europeans rarely do.

"The main buyers of art in China are those aged between 30 and 45, who have succeeded in the financial sector or in real estate," says Li Da, general manager of the Beijing Poly Art Auction Co Ltd.

Many of them speculate in art just as they do in bonds or apartments, according to Mei.

"There are not many buyers who are young in Europe. People have to get married, to have children, to throw the children out of their houses, and then they have the money and start to buy, and they still need time to learn about art and antiques. The process is long," says Jourdan.

"That's why I have to say that the youngest buyers are 40 to 45, and the majority are quite old. Sometimes, of very modern art, the buyers are younger but not much. It is the money problem - people just don't have the money to buy it until they are old enough," he adds.

As it gets more and more difficult to find works by established artists on the market, Chinese buyers are paying greater attention to young artists, as the art dealers are persuading them to do.

"If the artists are not dead, they are rarely on the market in Europe. Because only when they are dead, can everything they made not be reproduced," says Jourdan.

(China Daily 12/05/2005 page7)