Calligraphy piece by Lu Xun [Photo/Beijing Times]

9. Chinese literati Lu Xun's handwriting, $477,000, Dec 5

A rarely seen calligraphy of modern literati Lu Xun (1881-1936) sold for 3.05 million yuan ($477,000) at a Beijing auction in December.

The running script, in the form of a four-sentence Buddhist hymn, has 16 characters, translated as, "A butcher becomes a Buddha the moment he drops his cleaver. A man becomes a killer the moment he drops his sutras".

The final price means that every character Lu wrote fetched about 190,000 yuan, an auction record for the author's calligraphy.