Global art auction sales surged to a record $11.5 billion (8.7 billion euros) last year despite the weak world economy, with China cementing its spot as the top market, research showed Wednesday.

A report by Artprice, a French specialist, said auction revenues had risen 21 percent last year and for the first time exceeded the $10 billion mark.

China, which took over the first place in global auction sales in 2010, held on to the top spot with $4.79 billion in sales, or 41.43 percent of the market.

The United States was in second place with $2.72 billion in sales, or 23.57 percent of the market, followed by Britain with $2.24 billion, or 19.36 percent of the market.

"The growth of the art market in Asia has been stunning," Artprice said in a statement on its website.

"The year 2011 confirmed not so much the migration of the art market, which is still dynamic in the West, but as a new situation of global art market bi-polarity," it said.

As well as China's 38 percent growth in auction revenue last year, Singapore posted growth of 22 percent and Indonesia of 39 percent, the report said.

The year's best result was also generated by an Asian artist, China's Qi Baishi, whose 1946 painting of an eagle perched on the branch of a pine tree sold at auction in Beijing last May for 425.5 million yuan ($67.6 million.