Sotheby’s inaugural "Important Russian Art" sale brought in £10.4 million ($15 million) last night in London, nearly meeting its £11.3 million ($16.3 million) high estimate and marking an auspicious start for a week of Russian-themed auctions in the British capital.

Alexander Evgenievich Yakovlevs 1926 Titi and Naranghe, Daughters of Chief Eki Bondo was evening’s top lot, selling for £2.5 million ($3.6 million) on an estimate of £700–900,000 ($1–1.3 million). Yakovlev made the tender, Earth-toned work while traveling through Africa as the official painter of industrialist Andre Citroens legendary Croisiere Noire (“Black Cruise”) across the continent in the 1920s.

Finishing close behind Yakovlev's work was Yuri Pavlovich Annenkovs 1919 Portrait of Zinovii Grzhebin, which also jumped its £1.2 million ($1.7 million) high estimate to sell for £1.8 million ($2.6 million). Believed lost for a period, the Cubist-Futurist synthesis was sold by descendants of Grzhebin. In the catalogue, Sotheby’s declared it “undoubtedly one of the most important works by the artist ever to appear on the international market.”

Other high-performing lots included Ivan Ivanovich Shishkins 1876 The Dark Wood, which sold for £1.2 million ($1.7 million); Leon Baksts amber-tinged 1924 Portrait of the Future Countess Henri de Boisgelin, also sold by a descendant of the painting’s subject, which fetched £760,000 ($1.1 million); and Sergei Arsenievich Vinogradovs 1916 Cezanne-esque landscape View of Al-Petri, Crimea, which sold £620,000 ($890,000), more than four times its £150,000 ($220,000) high estimate. That figure was good enough to set a new artist record for Vinogradov.

“Bidding in tonight’s sale was dominated by private collectors from the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States, which includes Russian and other former Soviet states],” Sotheby’s senior director and head of Russian art Jo Vickery said in a statement. “I am delighted by tonight’s solid results which have shown that the Russian art market has bounced back to a level of activity not seen for over a year.”