Picking Cotton, a hanging scroll by Shi Lu that made $430,000 (£354,500) at Bonhams.
Picking Cotton, 1955, was painted in New Delhi in the year the artist - creator of the Red Classic paintings charting the course of the Chinese revolution - visited India to oversee the design of the Chinese Pavilion at the Indian Industries Fair.
On his return to China, Shi Lu used his sketch book to produce a series of finished paintings of the local scenery and the members of the rural population he had encountered.
The 2ft 2in x 21in (66 x 54cm) image of two Indian farmhands in traditional costume seen through the Chinese gaze came for sale on September 19 from the celebrated collector Reverend Richard Fabian.
Founder and rector of an ecumenical church in San Francisco, he began buying Chinese art and objects when he was chaplain at his alma mater Yale and took collecting advice on Chinese paintings from Tsao Jung-ying, founder of the Far East Fine Arts gallery, after moving to San Francisco in the late 1970s. At the time, works by many of today’s biggest names could be bought for under $1000.
The collection (elements of which have been sold by both Sotheby’s and Bonhams in recent years) has been the subject of exhibitions in both San Francisco and Honolulu and two substantial catalogues: Between the Thunder and the Rain: Chinese Paintings from the Opium War Through the Cultural Revolution, 1840-1979 (Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 2001) and New Songs on Ancient Tunes: 19th-20th Century Chinese Paintings and Calligraphy from the Richard Fabian Collection (Honolulu Academy of Art, 2007).
This Shi Lu of cotton pickers in India was pictured in both volumes.
