"Qi was an extremely gifted and prolific artist and was still painting at 89," says Ma Baojie, dean of Liaoning Museum, the largest collector of Qi’s work, with 400 paintings.

There are an estimated 30,000 works by Qi, including calligraphy, ink portraits, ink landscapes, ink stills and carved seals.

At least 3,000 of Qi’s works have been in circulation in art markets at home and abroad since the early 1990s.

Ma says most of Qi’s smaller and minor works cost 30,000-40,000 yuan （$4,392-5,856） at auctions and antique markets.

His larger and better-known works sell for much more.

Artron Art Market Monitoring Center statistics show the overall transaction volume of the local art market, last year, dropped 9.63 percent, while sales of calligraphy and ink painting gained 39.29 percent, reaching 3.4 billion yuan in transaction volume.

With sales of 198 million yuan, Qi topped the best-selling artists list in 2009, followed by Xu Beihong, Fu Baoshi and Li Keran.

At Beijing’s Hanhai autumn auction last December, Qi’s "Bei Ye Cao Chong" （"Flowers and Insects"） raked in 16.8 million yuan, a record price for Qi.

Shao predicts that works by Qi and other masters will "fetch higher prices in the coming years as there is a huge demand for classical Chinese art."

Kou Qin, China Guardian Auctions deputy general manager, believes classic and traditional art "has long been undervalued and is just re-gaining ground."

Kou says that classical and traditional art, rather than contemporary art, will continue to be the biggest seller in the Chinese art market for the foreseeable future.