A visitor takes a photo of the painting Slave and Lion by Xu Beihong with his mobile phone. [The Beijing News]

HONG KONG -- Slave and Lion, a painting by famous Chinese artist Xu Beihong, was auctioned here Sunday at 53.9 million HK dollars (6.9 million U.S. dollars), a record high price compared with other Chinese artists' paintings worldwide.

The price far exceeded the 32 million HK dollars (4.1 million U.S. dollars) estimate by Christie's Hong Kong in October.

According to the auction company, Slave and Lion was one of Xu's early works and it was painted with realistic technique of combining western sense of form and Chinese line of drawing.

The painting pictures a story of a slave and a lion in the Roman Empire. The slave who gave aid to a lion with a thorn in its paw later met the same lion in the cruel game of human-animal battle in Roman amphitheater. The emperor was moved by the touching reunion and thus gave the slave his freedom.