2011 june russian art sales pr

8/6/2019 2011 June Russian Art Sales PR

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For Immediate ReleasePress Release London

London | +44 (0)20 7293 6000 | Matthew Weigman | [email protected] |Simon Warren | [email protected]

SOTHEBYS SUMMER RUSSIAN ART SALES SERIES TOSOTHEBYS SUMMER RUSSIAN ART SALES SERIES TOSOTHEBYS SUMMER RUSSIAN ART SALES SERIES TOSOTHEBYS SUMMER RUSSIAN ART SALES SERIES TOPRESENT RARE AND IMPORTANT PAINTINGS, WORKS OFPRESENT RARE AND IMPORTANT PAINTINGS, WORKS OFPRESENT RARE AND IMPORTANT PAINTINGS, WORKS OFPRESENT RARE AND IMPORTANT PAINTINGS, WORKS OF

ART,ART,ART,ART, FABERGFABERGFABERGFABERG AND ICONSAND ICONSAND ICONSAND ICONS

Ilya Efimovich Repin,Ilya Efimovich Repin,Ilya Efimovich Repin,Ilya Efimovich Repin, Portrait of the Artists Wife, Vera Repin,Portrait of the Artists Wife, Vera Repin,Portrait of the Artists Wife, Vera Repin,Portrait of the Artists Wife, Vera Repin, dated 1878dated 1878dated 1878dated 1878Estimate: 1,000,000Estimate: 1,000,000Estimate: 1,000,000Estimate: 1,000,000----1,500,0001,500,0001,500,0001,500,000****

SOTHEBYS SUMMER SALES of Russian Art, which take place in London this June, will present for sale Russian

Paintings, Works of Art, Faberg, Icons and Contemporary Art. The Evening auction of Important Russian Paintings

will take place on Monday, June 6, 2011Monday, June 6, 2011Monday, June 6, 2011Monday, June 6, 2011, the Russian Paintings Day Sale will be staged on Tuesday, June 7, 2011Tuesday, June 7, 2011Tuesday, June 7, 2011Tuesday, June 7, 2011 andRussian Works of Art, Faberg and Icons takes place on Wednesday, June 8, 2011Wednesday, June 8, 2011Wednesday, June 8, 2011Wednesday, June 8, 2011. Combined, all three auctions are

estimated to realise in excess of 20 million.

Commenting on the forthcoming series, Jo Vickery, Senior Director and Head of Russian Art Department, Sothebys

London said: Sothebys global total of $82 million achieved in 2010 for sales of Russian Art combined with the success of

our April Sale of Russian Art in New York, which brought more than $16 million, continue Sothebys leadership in this field.

Our forthcoming London auctions of Russian Art this June are set to realise in excess of 20 million and will be led by an

important group of paintings by Vereschagin.


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Important Russian ArtImportant Russian ArtImportant Russian ArtImportant Russian Art SaleSaleSaleSale Monday, June 6, 2011Monday, June 6, 2011Monday, June 6, 2011Monday, June 6, 2011

Highlighting the sale will be Ilya Efimovich Repins (1844-1930) oil on canvas Portrait of the Artists Wife, Vera Repin,

dated 1878, which is widely considered one of the finest portraits of the artists career. Repin first met Vera Shevtsova

(1855-1918) when she was only nine years old, and she inspired some of Repins most admired watercolour and pencil

portraits. This particular portrait remained in Veras collection, hanging in her flat on Karpovka until she died, at which

point it was sold by her daughter.

Vera fell in love with Repin while she was still a student at the Mariinsky Institute. She was only 16 years old when they

were married in 1872, and Repin was ten years her senior. Though no match for him intellectually, she was a

sympathetic and appealing character, simple and childlike in her needs. Their relationship became stormy, and nine

years after the present work was painted the couple separated; they reunited in 1894 but the marriage finally fell apart

in 1900. The present masterpiece dates from a less troubled period of their lives and remains the only known,

published portrait of Vera Repin to exist outside museum collections. Since it is, above all, his portraiture that hasearned Repin international fame as one of the greatest Western European practitioners of this genre, the re-

emergence of an intimate family portrait from this period is a major event for all collectors and scholars of his work.

The painting is estimated at 1,000,000-1,500,000.

Further highlights in the sale include a group of

outstanding paintings from renowned Russian artist

Vasily Vasilievich Vereschagin (1842-1904). These

museum quality artworks are fresh to the market

and have not been seen publicly since the 1900s.

Shipka Pass is the most impressive canvas ever to be

offered at auction of Vereschagins Balkan series,

which consists of 25 paintings and 50 studies

inspired by his first hand impressions of the Russo-

Turkish war of 1877-78. Not only does the present work mark a pivotal event of Russian history, but in its restraint and

minimalism, is also one of Vereshchagins most modern compositions. In anticipation of hostilities, moved bypatriotism, and as Vereschagin simply put it, filled with a great desire to see with my own eyes a regular European war,

the artist requested to join the staff of the Russian army as a volunteer in October 1878. Vereschagin was anxious that

his series of Balkan paintings should not be broken up, but although the future Tsar Alexander III and Grand Duke

Nicholas both expressed an interest in acquiring them, some of the canvases were deemed too controversial and the

Prussian military attach even advised the Tsar to buy and destroy the entire series. In the event, Pavel Tretyakov

purchased five of the most important works; Ivan Tereschenko, a Kiev sugar baron, acquired five of the other large

canvases together with a number of studies and the remainder of the series was dispersed across the world following an

auction in New York in 1891. This oil on canvas is estimated at 300,000-500,000.


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On Campaign, also from Vereschagins Balkan series comes from an Important

European Collection. The painting bears a hand-written authentication in

Cyrillic by Vereschagins widow dated October 15, 1904, suggesting that it

remained in the artists collection until his death in 1904, at which time his widow

was forced to sell the work to pay off debts. On Campaign is an extraordinarily

complex composition and perhaps the most artistically ambitious of the entire

Balkan series. The painting is estimated at 400,000-600,000.

The Taj Mahal, Evening, is one of the most important

works to have resulted from Vereschagin's trip to Indiafrom 1874 to 1876. The artist often approached the same

monument or landscape at different times of day and

from varying perspectives, trying to catch the

particularities of the changing light, and he is known to

have painted several versions of the Taj Mahal. A smaller

view from the river in bright daylight is a highlight of the

collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Two

additional views of the Taj from the garden, in the

morning and the evening, were included in the sale at the American Art Galleries in New York in 1891, when the

present work was also first sold. The intensity of color in Vereschagin's Indian paintings surpassed that of his earlier

works, including the Turkestan series, and astonished critics at home and abroad. The painting is estimated at

250,000-450,000.

A further work is Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovskys (1817-1900) oil on canvas Shepherds with Their Flock at Sunset in

the Crimea, dated 1859. The painting depicts grazing sheep, a theme which appears variously throughout the artist'soeuvre. Aivazovsky often depicted sheep grazing peacefully

on the Crimean steppe or in Ukraine; before shearing; bathing

in the Black Sea; during a rainstorm, or packed into a solid

mass under the heat of the evening sun, as in the present

painting. Over the course of the 1870s and 1880s the artist

returned again and again to a theme which clearly captivated

him. More than ten pictures with a similar subject are known to

exist and some of these paintings can now be found in


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Museums in Omsk, Irkutsk, Odessa, Ashgabat, Ulan-Ude, and Chelyabinsk. One of these paintings Sheep at

Pasture (1850s) is held at the Tretyakov Gallery. This museum-quality artwork is estimated at 800,000 -1,200,000.

Another highlight from the forthcoming Important Russian Art

Sale is Zinaida Evgenievna Serebriakovas (1884-1967) oil on

canvas Reclining Nude. Acquired from the family of the artist by

the present owner, this piece is one of the finest large-scale oils by

Serebriakova ever to come to auction, and shows the artist at the

height of her powers. The artwork recalls the nudes of Edgar

Degas and Edouard Manet; Serebriakova had arrived in Paris in

the mid-1920s and was undoubtedly influenced by these masters

in her adoptive homeland. Serebriakovas appreciation of the

plasticity of the female form was extraordinary, yet from the mid-1930s, she painted increasingly fewer nudes. Severalof the Russian girls in Paris who used to pose for her got married around 1934, and without the means to pay for

professional models, Serebriakova simply lacked the opportunity to return to one of her favourite subjects. Reclining

Nude is property from a private European collection and is estimated at 600,000-800,000.

Among the two contemporary artworks in the upcoming Russian Art auction

will be Erik Bulatovs (b.1933) oil on canvas Winter. The painting was completed

in 1988, just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, a period widely considered

to be the artists best. The painting comes from a private collection and is

estimated at 60,000-80,000.

Also featured is Alexander Evgenievich Yakolevs (1887-1938) oil on canvas Opera in

Peking, which is dated 1918. This important painting is estimated at 800-1,200,000.

One of the most important works to be painted during the artists trip to the Far East

in 1918, it underscores the artists belief that an appreciation of the richness of ancient

Chinese civilisation was crucial in grasping the essence of modern day China.

Exceptional in its daring use of perspective, Yakovlevs powerful composition is

believed to depict a scene from a 16th century play by the poet Tang, The Peony

Pavilion, which subsequently became the template for the story of a perfect love.


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Russian Works of Art,Russian Works of Art,Russian Works of Art,Russian Works of Art, FabergFabergFabergFaberg and Icons on Wednesday, June 8and Icons on Wednesday, June 8and Icons on Wednesday, June 8and Icons on Wednesday, June 8 thththth, 2011, 2011, 2011, 2011

Highlighting the forthcoming Works of Art, Faberg

and Icons sale is a Silver Service for Tea and Coffee,

dated 1899-1908. Designed by prominent silversmith

Andrei Bragin, this neo-Rococo style set is comprised

of a large samovar, tray, coffee pot, covered sugar

bowl, creamer, small bowl and a cake basket. Bragin

was best known, between 1852 and 1917, for

producing very fine work following the Historicism

trend, and examples of his art are in leading Russian

museums, including the State Historical Museum in Moscow. This impressive set is estimated at 100,000-150,000.

Included in the Faberg section of the sale will be two Faberg Silver and

Bowenite Table Lamps by Julius Rappoport (image right), dated 1899-1908.

These lamps, originally intended and almost certainly sold by Faberg as a

pair with the same scratched inventory numbers, are reunited here after

having been separated early in their history. One of them remained in a

private European collection, where it was passed down through generations

with the original silver fittings preserved. The other once belonged in an

important American collection. Electrical systems for domestic use firstappeared in St Petersburg in the 1880s; some early Faberg electric

lamps were used in the private rooms of members of the Imperial Family.

Most such lamps were the work of Julius Rappoport, who specialised in making functional pieces. The two lots are

estimated at 50,000-70,000 and 60,000-80,000, respectively.

Among the Icons being offered for sale is a 19 th century (last

quarter) icon of the Savior, which is estimated at 40,000-

60,000. The work, entitled The Transfiguration on Mount

Tabor, is held in a gilt-metal and enamel frame, decorated

with foliate forms in the Old Russian style, and applied with

colourful enamel roundels. The border of the painting is

decorated with enamel motifs and pilasters. This icon is

stylistically close to the icon of St. Pelagia and Saint JohnSaint JohnSaint JohnSaint John

KlimakosKlimakosKlimakosKlimakosattributed to Vasily Petrovich Vereschagin (1835-1909), executed for The Cathedral of Christ the Saviourin Moscow, circa 1879-1931.


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Another highlight of the Works of Art, Faberg and Icons sale is a Bust

Portrait of Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia, by Prosper d'pinay, dated

1836-1914. The bust represents the Empress in her full court-dress: wearing a

sash, a Star of the Order of St. Catherine, a tiara imitating a Russian

kokoshnikwith a veil, andpearl and diamond jewellery. Commissioned by the

Emperor Alexander III in 1887 at the height of d'pinays popularity,two

versions of the portrait are known to exist, one in plaster and one in marble.

While the plaster bust is preserved by the family of the artist, the

whereabouts of the marble version was unknown until now. This distinguished

sculpture is estimated at 30,000-50,000.

Additional Auction Highlights Include:Additional Auction Highlights Include:Additional Auction Highlights Include:Additional Auction Highlights Include:

A FINE AND IMPRESSIVE SILVER-GILT ANDCLOISONN ENAMEL KOVSH, NIKOLAI ALEXEEV,

MOSCOW, 1901Property from a Private Collection, Europe

Estimate: 30,000-50,000

A RARE FABERG JEWELLED GOLD FAN, WORKMASTERHENRIK WIGSTRM,ST PETERSBURG, 1910Estimate: 30,000-50,000

A RARE SILVER-GILT AND ENAMEL PICTORIAL BOX,

PROBABLY FEODOR RCKERT, 1911Commissioned by Marshak, KievEstimate: 30,000-50,000

Notes to Editor:Notes to Editor:Notes to Editor:Notes to Editor:*Estimates do not include buyers premium.

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2011 june russian art sales pr

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