A painting by Liu Ye sold for HK$19.1 million ($2.5 million) at a Hong Kong auction, the most for a Chinese contemporary artist in two years, in a sign prices are returning to pre-credit-crisis levels.

Liu’s acrylic-and-oil “Bright Road,” showing a smiling couple with a flaming jet in the background, fetched an artist record. It was one of seven Chinese contemporary works that made $1 million or more at Sotheby’s sale, fueled by mainland and Indonesian money. During last year’s crisis, bidders passed on similar works offered at a third of yesterday’s prices.

“Demand for the best Chinese contemporary artworks is back,” Eric Huang, a Taipei-based buyer and dealer, said in an interview at the auction. “Don’t be surprised to see prices match or even beat pre-crisis levels very soon.”

Well, maybe too optimism. It’s true that  a few works sell very well, but some not expensive Zhang Xiaogang at 300.000 usd or Wang Guangyi at 100.000 usd were not sold. True that for Wang’s Passport reached a huge price of 892.584 usd excluded buyers premium.

I think the best news is that prices found a bottom level for the great artists and probably rising a little bit for good works.