LONDON—An artwork with a pre-sale estimate around £2,000 ($2,970) went for a meager £10 at Christie's Russian 19th- and 20th-century art auction in London last week, epitomizing the dreary results of the sale, which reached a total of £7.9 million against a pre-sale low estimate of £14.5 million. Fifty-five percent of lots found buyers, according to Bloomberg.

The £10 work, an undated and anonymous ink-on-paper, Troika Leaving the Farmstead, was bought by prominent Russian collector Nikita Lobanov-Rostovky after auctioneer James Bruce-Gardyne asked the room in exasperation: "Will anyone give me £10?"

The auction's highest seller was Natalia Goncharova's painting Still Life With Watermelons, which fetched £1.55 million against a low estimate of £1.5 million. Goncharova's Abstract Composition With Palette, however, was one of the many lots that failed to sell.

Christie's total for the week of Russian art sales was £10.93 million, well below its £18.86 million low estimate and 2007's £39.1 million result for the same series. Sotheby's also held Russian sales last week, bringing in £25.2 million against a pre-sale estimate of more than £30 million. Last year the house earned £38.7 million at the same sales.