Market News: Sotheby's believes there may be a new market for traditional 19th century paintings Traditional 19th-century paintings have, with one or two exceptions, taken a back seat in the booming art market. But Sotheby's believes there may be a new market for them in China. On Thursday it opens a selling exhibition in its new galleries in Hong Kong entitled The Age of Elegance, which focuses on the technical mastery of 19th‑century European painters and craftsmen. Lavishly decorated Louis XVI style furnishings will be accompanied by a range of paintings from the neoclassical, typified by John William Godward's An Amateur (pictured), to the Barbizon plein-air landscapes of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. Patti Wong, chairman of Sotheby's Asia, says: "Asian interest in exceptional items of furniture and decorative arts produced in Europe is flourishing." The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has succeeded in its fund-raising campaign to acquire a masterpiece by Nicolas Poussin for a fraction of the price it was previously valued at. The painting, Extreme Unction (c.1638-40), is one of a series of seven paintings by Poussin of the Seven Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. Sir Robert Walpole tried to buy the series from its Italian owner, but the sale was forbidden by the Pope. However, in 1785, the 4th Duke of Rutland managed to spirit them away to Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire, having had copies made to stay in Rome. By 2007, when the present Duke of Rutland mooted that the series, then on loan to the National Gallery, would be sold, there were only five left in England. One had been burnt in a fire and another sold in 1939 to the National Gallery in Washington. The remaining five were valued at around £100 million. Of these, one was sold last year to the Kimball Art Museum in Texas for £15 million, incurring inheritance tax, which necessitated the sale of another - Extreme Unction - which was on loan to the Fitzwilliam and valued at £14 million. In August, the Fitzwilliam launched a campaign to raise the funds by this month or lose the painting to an overseas buyer. Taking advantage of the Government's Inheritance in Lieu scheme, which allows owners of culturally and historically important property to pay tax owed through a sale to the nation and buyers to benefit from an accordingly reduced price, the Fitzwilliam was able to buy the painting for £3.9 million with assistance from the Art Fund, the Heritage Lottery Fund, and private donations. The painting will be at the National Gallery until Sunday and will be on view at the Fitzwilliam from December. The top lots by British graffiti artist Banksy bombed in Bonhams" first Urban art auction to be held in Los Angeles last week. Estimated to fetch between $100,000 and $150,000 (£62,000-£93,000), Banksy's spray-painted stencil, Gangsta Rat, found no buyer. Estimated at the same price, another stencil, Paparazzi Rat, met the same fate. Maybe Californians just don't like rats.