Courtesy Regina gallery

José-María Cano’s oversized re-creations of Wall Street Journal illustrations of leading Russian personalities drew attention at the booth of Moscow's Regina Gallery.

Courtesy Ståhl

These hand-painted mammoth-ivory dice accompany a customizable poker set with diamond-encrusted chips from Stockholm-based bespoke jeweler Ståhl.

Andy Warhol Roy Lichtenstein Marc Chagall Jose Maria Cano Claude Monet Fernand Leger Henri Edmond Cross Alfred Sisley

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The 56 fine and decorative arts dealers and 20 jewelers who took booths at the fifth edition of the Moscow World Fine Art Fair, which opened May 28 and runs through June 2, are banking on it. They came from as far as Kyoto, Paris, and New York to capitalize on Russia’s exploding luxury-goods market, fueled by a new class of wealthy oligarchs in search of status goods. Some exhibitors are catering to the so-called Russian taste by bringing works by native artists and French Impressionists, while others are testing the breadth of the market.

A definite highlight is Spanish artist José-María Cano’s oversized recreations of Wall Street Journal illustrations of leading Russian personalities, including Vladimir Putin and Viktor Vekselberg, at Moscow’s Regina Gallery. These contemporary Russian icons in encaustic on canvas are available for €35,000 ($54,000) each, or €250,000 ($388,000) for all ten, and the gallery’s Olga Barkovskaya was “sure that all will be sold.”

The centerpiece of first-time participant Jane Kahan’s display is a nearly 12-by-16-foot tapestry of Russian-born Marc Chagall’s 1964 masterpiece La Vie (€2.8 million). The New York dealer also brought a woven version of Fernand Léger’s Les Constructeurs à l’Aloès (1951), priced at €172,000, the original of which can be seen across town at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. “We felt we had things that are relevant,” Kahan said of her decision to participate in the fair.

Kensuke Kami, the general manager of Kyoto’s Shibunkaku Co., Ltd., who already sells to Russian interior designers and is looking to broaden his client base in the country, said he was less certain about what would appeal to fairgoers. He eventually settled on an array of cloisonné vases, lacquer boxes, and ink paintings spanning the 20th century, as well as a gold-leaf screen from the early Edo period (1600) painted with scenes from the suburbs of Kyoto, which, at $350,000, had already garnered much attention from fairgoers.

Benjamin Steinitz of B. B. Steinitz, Paris-based specialists in period furniture, also brought a wide “selection of what might work,” he said. He lined his opulent booth with Rococo oak paneling from a circa 1760 hôtel particulier, priced at €1 million including transportation and installation, and hung it with chandeliers, including a wood-and-gilded-bronze Japonisme creation from 1860–70 (€190,000). Steinitz, who has participated in the Moscow fair for four years, said he has noticed Russian collectors beginning to “understand quality. They’re getting to the point where they’re more selective.”

When it comes to jewels, though, they simply want “diamonds — the larger the better,” said Milan-based Pierandrea Sabbadini, who is showing a 40-carat emerald-cut diamond ring (€5.5 million). Across the way, Van Cleef & Arpels, which operates two boutiques in Moscow, is debuting the second of its Russian collections. The Art Deco–inspired creations include the “Maïa” necklace (€200,600) and bracelet (€82,000), set with pink coral, peridot, black onyx, and diamonds, and the “Agnia” crossover necklace with two 37-carat aquamarines (€377,600).

Jewelers reported doing brisk business at the fair, but most foreign dealers of fine and decorative arts say they come to Moscow to build relationships and reputation rather than to make sales, in part because Russian regulations make it difficult to leave any of their inventory in the country. Some Russian buyers, however, are willing to buy and wait for delivery from abroad. By opening night, Paris’s Galerie Le Minotaure had already offloaded a 1918 gouache of a floral still-life by the Russia-born Natalia Goncharova for an undisclosed sum, and Galerie Schmit, also from Paris, had made three sales: Claude Monet’s Chemin boisé, effet de neige (1869) and Alfred Sisley’s Sur les bords du Loing, effet du matin (1896), both Impressionist landscapes, and Henri-Edmond Cross’s Cyprès (1904), a Pointillist one.