SHANGHAI - What would a Chinese merchant do after making their first bucket of gold? Buy a scroll painting, some other form of antique, or perhaps an expensive sports car?

Well, the burning ambition among many of the newly rich in the prosperous coastal regions to expand their social and aesthetic horizons prompted Harper's Bazaar to do something different in China, other than simply publish fashion magazines.

A magazine rack in Beijing. International publishing companies are eyeing the Chinese market with a view to catering to "the increasingly diverse and expensive tastes of the Chinese elite".[Photo/China Daily]

Earlier this year, the publishing group introduced Bazaar Arts, published every two months, catering to what its executive editor Xu Ning referred to as "the increasingly diverse and expensive tastes of the Chinese elite".

It was a bold move by the New York-based magazine group that has built a worldwide reputation as an authoritative arbiter of high fashion since 1867. But the move seems to be paying off.

Since its debut in January, the magazine has built up a stable circulation of 370,000 copies, making it "indisputably the arts magazine with the largest circulation in China", according to Xu. "Apart from the 1 million-plus professional collectors in China, the magazine also aims to bring the arts to consumers of luxury goods, promoting the appreciation and collection of objets d'art among the Chinese elite," he said.

The publishers obviously picked the right time to launch the magazine. According to the China Art Market Annual Report released by the Ministry of Culture in May, the turnover of the art market in 2010 was 169.4 billion yuan ($26.6 billion), a rise of approximately 41 percent on 2009.

Statistics provided by the European Fine Art Foundation show that the turnover of original domestic artworks and antiques reached 98.9 billion yuan in 2010, accounting for 23 percent of the global market. That figure saw China overtake the United Kingdom to become the world's second-largest consumer of works of art.

The art auction market also leapt massively last year. A total of 230,000 out of the 300,000 artworks offered at auction were sold last year, reaching a total transaction volume of 58.9 billion yuan, a rise of 177 percent year-on-year.

Chinese artists such as Zeng Fanzhi and Cai Guoqiang have moved effortlessly into the list of the world's top 10 best-selling artists.

"All these have come to demonstrate that the arts have grown from a minority hobby into an industry that receives national attention," said Xu.

"The growing demand for luxury goods in China has accelerated the development of fashion magazines. But as the readers and consumers mature, their choice of luxury goods will, of course, become more personalized. It can be predicted that luxury brands with close connections to the arts and culture will receive more attention from the public. Therefore, these are the brands that Bazaar Arts, as well as other fashion-related magazines, should seek to cooperate with in the future," said Xu.

"Bazaar Fashion launched its first issue in 2001 and, we have helped China to enter and appreciate an era of luxury-consumption. With the launch of Bazaar Arts, hopefully, we will bring the arts - the ultimate form of fashion - to the upper echelons of Chinese society," said Su Mang, the magazine's executive publisher.