Lots of Records, Buy-Ins at Sotheby’s Russian Sales

Courtesy Sotheby's

A record was set for Evgeny Rukhin when his “Da Nyet" (1975) sold for $265,000 (est. $60–80,000).

Jasper Johns Jim Dine James Rosenquist Oleg Vassiliev Ilya Kabakov Vitaly Komar Alexander Melamid Oscar Rabine

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Komar and Melamid’s mixed-media triptych Composition with Missiles (Landscape Inspired by Rothko) (1985–86) soared above its $120–150,000 pre-sale estimate to sell for $445,000. The pair were leaders of the Sots Art movement in the 1970s, which made a mockery of Soviet Socialist Realism with paintings resembling Pop Art, and moved to New York in 1978.

Asked before the sale which painting could be a sleeper, Alla Rosenfeld, Sotheby’s senior specialist in Russian paintings, pointed without hesitation to Oleg Vassiliev’s Home II from the series “White House, October 31” (1993), a work that, like other Vassilievs, blends two major traditions in Russian art: 19th-century realism and early-20th-century avant-garde. As predicted, the painting sold for high above its pre-sale estimate of $40–50,0000, earning $157,000.

Works that failed to sell in the second session included Svetlana Kopystiansky’s The Story (1987) (est. $50–70,000), Oleg Tselkov’s The Collector and Collection (incorrectly titled in the catalog as Five Faces with Hand) (est. $500–700,0000), and Last Riot: Panorama #4, a digital print on canvas by the art collective AES+F (est. $180–220,000).

Popular Works of Art Make up for Sluggish Paintings Results
If you have any spare Russian enamel drinking vessels (kovsh), tea sets, or perhaps some 19th-century icons lying around unused or unneeded, get yourself to an auction house posthaste. Sotheby’s third session of its Russian sale, featuring works of art, on April 16 was a marathon four-hour event in which spirited bidding by Russians in the room and on the phone pushed prices to dizzying heights.

For example, a large silver-and-enamel kovsh made by Grigory Sbitnev of Moscow (c. 1910) sold in the room for $205,000 (est. $60–80,000), and a gilded silver-and-shaded-enamel pictorial card box by Feodor Rückert (c. 1900), made in the “Russian Style” (face cards represent characters in 17th-century Russian costume), soared to $253,000 (est. $15–20,000), going to a telephone bidder. A set of 12 gilded-silver-and-enamel spoons, also by Rückert, sold for $133,000 (est. $15–20,000). The highest price for an enamel work was $421,000 (est. $200–300,000) for a Fabergé carved cup and cover (c. 1900) in smoky quartz, gold, and enamel by workmaster Michael Perchin of St. Petersburg. 

Competition and prices were also high for icons. A Fabergé icon of Christ Pantocrator (c. 1900) by workmaster Johan Victor Aarne of St. Petersburg, with a silver frame set with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and pearls, drew applause from the audience, when, after a long back-and-forth auction, it sold for $780,200 (est. $100–150,000). The following lot was another star icon: a gilt-silver-and-enamel triptych, the central panel painted with St. Olga, that was given by the town of Tsarskoe Selo to Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra to commemorate the birth of their first child. It sold for $409,000 (est. $100–150,000).

The only major unsold lot was a monumental porcelain centerpiece with gilt bronze mounts, made by the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory in St. Petersburg during the reign of Nicholas I (1825–55). The centerpiece, comprised of eight jardinières, measures 33 by 45 inches. Estimated to bring $2–3 million, it sank at $1.6 million, which is too bad: It would have looked wonderful in the lobby of a Moscow bank.

In total, the session made $10,342,851, bringing the total for all three sessions to $46,449,401, well within the pre-sale estimate of $40–60 million.