Last week’s Christie’s and Sotheby’s Asian art sales were led by three important troves of Chinese works that reflected the collecting history in the category and demonstrated the importance of provenance in the current market. The works themselves also told another story about this complicated genre. There are still plenty of collectors who chase trophy works to suit their tastes, but they are paying much closer attention to chain of ownership, as are the auction houses when filling and pricing their sales. And these discerning buyers have very clear demands that must be met before shelling out the big bucks—or even medium bucks.