The FAF has been trying to capture some of the interest by setting up a dedicated Chinese fund, although it would be buying Chinese art works and not Western ones.

"We have been on a marketing trip to Hong Kong and Beijing recently and we have found quite a lot of interest," he said.

To capture this interest in art China might actually be getting its own first traded art fund.

The Shenzhen Culture Equity Exchange is later this year expected to launch one. It will be open to investors who want an alternative to investing in individual works of art.

Professor Mei from the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, who has been consulted on the new fund, said it could produce a better return than Picassos at $106 a throw.

"Major art works are to some extent like investing in blue chip stocks like Google in that they have already had their major price growth. If you invest in new talent and up-and-coming artists the returns can be better," he said.

But Ben Brown, who owns Ben Brown Fine Art, which runs major galleries in both Hong Kong and London, believes there is too much hype about the recent activity of Chinese buyers.

"I think there may actually be more of a market right now for major works in the Flemish part of Belgium than in the whole of China. I think mainland buying of significant Western art is a long way off," he said.

He said it could only benefit the auction houses, pointing to a Renoir in the recent Christies's New York sale which went for $8.8 million but had a guide of $5 million. The price was reportedly pushed up by a Chinese underbidder.

"Without the underbidder it would more than likely have sold for its reserve. He, however, has had the effect of increasing the price by around $4 million and generating some $600,000 of commission for Christie's, which more than pays their presence in China for a year. Just that one underbidder is worth his weight in gold," he said.

Ken Yeh at Christie's, who was present at the New York auction, has no doubt that the recent activity of mainland buyers is real and the start of something big.