In purchases highlighting the financial might of China, the Asian country’s richest man, Wang Jianlin, has snapped up Picasso’s painting of his young children, Claude and Paloma, for $28.2 million at Christie’s in New York earlier this week.

With an estimate of $9 million to $12 million, the 1950 canvas was, according to a Bloomberg report, part of an “otherwise lacklustre” evening sale of art dealer Jan Krugier’s collection.

Wang, who bought Picasso’s Claude et Paloma, through Rebecca Wei, managing director of Christie’s Asia, ranks as 84th on the Bloomberg Billionaire Index with net worth of $13.2 billion, the news service said. He is the chairman and founder of Dalian Wanda, a Chinese conglomerate.

The famous Spanish modernist’s painting was bought during the two-day sale of A Dialogue Through Art: Works from the Jan Krugier Collection, bringing the grand total for the sales of the widely-respected art dealer's collection to $113,732,000 with 81 per cent sold by lot, according to a statement from Christie’s.

More broadly, the art market, which has been buoyed by its perceived "safe haven" status as a store of value, has not been able to continue strong gains as equity markets have recovered some ground, according to Beautiful Asset Advisors, providers of the closely-watched Mei Moses Index of art auction results. As of September, the Mei Moses World All Art Index is down by 3.5 per cent, a slight improvement on the decline of 4.2 per cent as reported in July.