The world's finest now in China

In November 2015, Liu Yiqian made history when he snapped up Amadeo Modigliani's Reclining Nude for $170.4 million at a Christie's auction in New York. Liu, who set up Shanghai's twin Long museums and a third in Chongqing with his wife, Wang Wei, is believed to own the largest private art collection in China.

During the auction preview in Hong Kong, Liu casually asked his wife if she fancied the Modigliani. When she said yes, he bid for the painting by telephone without her knowledge and bought it. The price was the second-highest for an artwork at auction.

Movie mogul Wang Zhongjun, who chairs Huayi Brothers Media Group, is a trained painter. A fan of the Impressionist school, he already owned works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro, when he saw Van Gogh's Vase with Daisies and Poppies at an auction preview at Sotheby's Hong Kong office. When the painting went under the hammer at Sotheby's New York in November 2014, Wang was pleasantly surprised to find his favorite impressionist master was well within his budget. He bid with confidence, and ultimately took home a Van Gogh classic for $61.8 million.

Real estate tycoon Joseph Lau Luen-hung paid $17.4 million for Andy Warhol's portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong at a Christie's auction in New York in 2006 - a jaw-dropping amount for a work of pop art at the time. Lau told the media he had struck a bargain. Paintings of Mao from the same series - created by Warhol in 1972 in his generic style, using psychedelic color blocking - are still in high demand although the prices have not met the projections made back then. Last year Sotheby's sold one of them for $40,000.