20 17th December 2011 art market russian sales in london continued from page 19


some unusual logistical problems – it was too large for the restorers’ room and so was cleaned offsite, and had to be photographed in a room large enough to fit into one wide-angle shot. As well as being unwieldy, the


painting was also somewhat different in appeal to Vereshchagin’s more favoured brightly coloured Eastern scenes. However, he is a key name in Russian


art –The State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow has a room dedicated to his work – and Crucifixion, pitched at £1m-1.5m, drew decent interest from Russian art collectors whose interest was not just in Vereshchagin but also the wider market. Knocked down at top-estimate to


a private Russian buyer, Crucifixion by the Romans became the fourth work by Vereshchagin to make over £1m at auction and followed on from the record £2m bid for The Taj Mahal, Evening at Sotheby’s in June. Also generating strong bidding at


Christie’s was Viktor Vasnetsov’s (1848-1926) A Bogatyr from 1920, a 5ft 2in x 6ft 11in (1.59 x 2.12m) oil on canvas painting of Ilya Muromets – a hero from Russian medieval folklore primarily celebrated for defending the city of Kiev. Vasnetsov painted at least three


versions of this rousing picture showing Muromets on his leaping horse, but while the artist produced a fair number of such historicist pictures, very few are known to still remain in private hands. This one came from a private English


vendor whose grandfather knew the artist. Estimated at £300,000-500,000,


it sold to a Russian private buyer at £950,000 – a substantial record for the artist which underlined how, for these kind of pictures, it is a case of the more patriotic the better.


Merchant’s Wife turns a healthy profit


A WORK which demonstrated the growth of the top end Russian art market during the oligarch era was Merchant’s Wife by Boris Kustodiev (1878-1927). The 3ft 2in x 2ft 6in (98 x 77cm)


oil on canvas from 1923 headlined MacDougall’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) Russian art sales on December 3. It had last sold at auction at Sotheby’s


“The latest Russian sales in London show that this is one area of the market where traditional art is outselling Modern and Contemprary counterparts”


Right: Merchant’s Wife by Boris Kustodiev – £1.5m at MacDougall’s.


Below: Tatar Still Life by Petr Konchalovsky – £780,000 at Sotheby’s.


Pre-Revolutionary still life tops Sotheby’s week


ON November 29, Sotheby’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) staged a special 127- lot sale of works by Alexander Benois (1870-1960), a name synonymous with the Ballet Russes, in which set and costume designs featured prominently. Consigned by the artist’s family, it was a sell-out sale and made a hammer total of £1.6m. The top lot, a 1914 watercolour and


pencil set design for the second act of Igor Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol, which depicted the Emperor’s Palace, sold at a five-times- estimate £195,000 and was featured on the front page of last week’s ATG. Sotheby’s top lot of the week, however,


in February 1998 for £65,000, but reappeared here 13 years on with a £1.2m-1.8m estimate. One of the artist’s most recognisable


subjects, Kustodiev’s paintings of kupchikhas can be found in a number of public collections in his homeland but, here again, there is not an abundance of examples still in private hands. Selling at £1.5m to a Russian buyer,


the price equalled that seen for Portrait of Irina Kustodiva, the artist’s daughter, which MacDougall’s sold in June. The December sale also achieved a


record for Aleksandr Volkov (1886- 1957) when his figurative group scene Listening to the Bedana took £720,000 against a £300,000-500,000 estimate.


From an American collection, the


oil on canvas laid down on board was painted in the 1920s and has its authenticity confirmed by the Uzbek artist’s family. MacDougall’s also claimed the


highest individual price of the week for a work on paper when a stage design from 1913 by Leon Bakst (1866-1924) took £700,000 against a £40,000- 60,000 estimate. From a 1913 production at the


Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, La Pisanelle ou la mort Pafumee was a 9½ x 15¼in (24 x 39cm) watercolour and gouache on cardboard which came from a German collection of 52 drawings, 26 of which sold.


came at their 30-lot Important Russian Art sale held the previous evening. This was Petr Konchalovsky’s (1876-


1956) Tatar Still Life, a rare pre-revolutionary work from 1916. Consigned from a French collection, the


2ft 11in x 3ft 7in (90 x 1.07m) oil on canvas had originally been owned by the Polish art critic Waldemar George who presented the painting as a wedding gift to Louis Gautier- Chaumet, editor-in-chief of La Presse, where George served as art critic. Dating from the height of Konchalovsky’s


creative output, several years after he founded the Jack of Diamonds artists’ society, which pioneered the Russian avant-garde, the worked showed the strong influence of Cézanne and took a top-estimate £780,000, selling to a Russian private buyer.


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