Hong Kong  - The booming market for Chinese art appears to be the latest victim of the global economic downturn, a Hong Kong news report said Monday.

A Sotheby's auction of 20th-century Chinese art Sunday in Hong Kong saw 71 of the 110 lots go unsold, the South China Morning Post reported.

The most expensive work sold, an abstract painting by Zhao Wuji, fetched 4.22 million Hong Kong dollars (543,000 US dollars) after the auction house estimated it would bring in 4.7 million to 5.5 million Hong Kong dollars.

At a separate Sotheby's sale of contemporary Chinese art also on Sunday, 37 out of 187 lots were unsold, the newspaper said, despite the success of recent similar auctions worldwide.

Sotheby's chief executive Kevin Ching told the newspaper it was not surprising that the market for contemporary Chinese art was "levelling off."

"It [the market] has experienced unprecedented growth over the past five years - from 3 million US dollars in 2004 to 194 million US dollars last year," he said. (dpa)