Chinese painting maestro Wu Guanzhong's master piece, White Poplar Woods, will be auctioned with an estimated price of 6 million yuan (US$740,000) on Forever's debut, the auction house announced here in Beijing Sunday.

Backed by Christie's, a major player in Asian fine arts auction market, Forever is to auction some 470 articles with a combined estimated value of 80 million yuan (about US$9.9 million), it said.

Works of traditional Chinese painting masters Qi Baishi, Huang Zhou and Zhang Daqian are also on the list of auction, which will take place at the Great Wall Sheraton Hotel on Nov. 3.

"We believe the future of this business is great," said Edward Dolman, chief executive officer of Christie's International.

The fledging Chinese auction market, resumed in 1986 after a long break, has surged quickly. Official statistics show that China has more than 100 million individual collectors.

Figures from the Ministry of Commerce show that China's auction industry registered a transaction volume of 200 billion yuan (US$24 billion) in 2004, up 45 percent over the previous year.

(Xinhua News Agency October 31, 2005)