Christie's has appointed Ruben Lien as managing director of its Taiwan business, handing the Chinese ceramics specialist responsibility for developing the auction house's work with collectors on the island. Lien will report to Weng Xiaohui, Christie's chairwoman for Taiwan, while continuing as a senior specialist in Chinese ceramics and works of art for Asia Pacific.

Lien has spent more than two decades at Christie's. A graduate of SOAS University of London, where he studied Chinese, he joined the house as an intern in 2001 and became a specialist in its Chinese art department the following year. In 2005 he helped identify the subject of a Yuan dynasty blue-and-white jar depicting the sage Guiguzi, which sold in London for 15.7 million pounds. He moved to Hong Kong in 2013 and returned to Taiwan in 2021.

In recent years Lien has worked on several major consignments from Taiwanese collectors, including the Yangdetang, Yunzhong Yuyan and Ai Lian Tang collections, bringing privately held Chinese ceramics, jade and scholars' objects to international salerooms. Christie's has operated a representative office in Taipei since 1993, and Taiwan's collectors have long been among the most active buyers of Chinese art worldwide.

Lien said he had watched Taiwanese collectors make an important contribution to the global art market over two decades, and that he wanted to deepen long-term relationships with clients and connect them more closely with the house's specialists around the world. The appointment comes as Christie's marks 40 years in Asia, a period in which its Hong Kong sales have become central to the regional market.