Christie's opened the Asian autumn auction season on September 29, 2026 with a 20th/21st Century Evening Sale in Hong Kong that totalled HK$726,421,000 (US$92,589,911) — a 28 percent increase on last year and 100 percent sold by lot. The evening was led by Jean-Michel Basquiat's Ancient Scientist (1984), which sold for HK$76,975,000 (US$9,811,264), the most valuable work sold at auction in Asia this autumn. Christie's Asia Pacific president Rahul Kadakia took the rostrum for a marathon session of cross-regional bidding from Asia, the US and Europe — conducted from a new rostrum marking the house's 260th anniversary. Zao Wou-Ki's Voie Lactée–09.11.56 followed at HK$58.9 million, while Yayoi Kusama's monumental pumpkin A-Pumpkin (YHP) (2011), making its auction debut months after the artist's death in August, achieved HK$58.2 million. An Old Master provided the evening's sharpest surprise: Rubens's Landscape with Willows, offered at auction for the first time in more than two centuries, nearly doubled its high estimate to finish at HK$19.2 million. The sale set Asia auction records for Cézanne, Matisse, Dalí and Rubens, and the house reported that the momentum carried into its day sales on September 30. The result underlines Hong Kong's gravitational pull in the global market: a full house, a white-glove evening, and four artists' Asia records in a single session, with the house reporting continued momentum into its day sales on September 30. For Christie's, which staged the sale from a new rostrum to mark its 260th anniversary, the evening was as much a statement of confidence in the Asian market as it was a commercial result — the opening volley of the autumn season delivered 28 percent growth on last year with every lot finding a buyer.