LONDON.- From Fabergé and Feodor Rückert to Alexei Bogoliubov and Konstantin Makovsky, works by Russian Masters will come together in London this season for
Sotheby’s Russian Art sales on 4 June.
Featuring works by some of the most well-known names in Russian art from the 1830s to the present day, the Russian Pictures sale will present a particularly strong offering of 19th century paintings, including a number of works offered at auction for the first time. The sale is led by a rare Russianperiod canvas by one of the country’s most influential avant-garde artists, Mikhail Larionov whose Still Life has not been seen in public for over 60 years.
The Russian Works of Art, Fabergé and Icons sale will once again illustrate the broad spectrum of traditional Russian craftsmanship and will be highlighted by rare and sought-after objets de fantaisie created by none other than Fabergé. Exceptional examples of beautifully enamelled kovshi, delicate vertu pieces, silver, bronzes and Soviet porcelain will further distinguish the sale.
The sales follow in the wake of strong results for Russian art at Sotheby’s in 2018. The November sale series alone, which included the sale of the private collection of the musical geniuses Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya, realised $29.4 million (£23 million)– the highest total across all Russian sales that season - and saw a number of artist records broken, including for Konstantin Makovsky, and Georgian artist, Niko Pirosmani. The Russian works of art sale also saw outstanding results with pieces such as a Feodor Rückert kovsh selling for many times over their pre-sale estimate.
RUSSIAN PICTURES
Mikhail Fedorovich Larionov, Still Life (Lot 56) Estimate: £1 – 1.5 million
This rare, large-scale still life with by one of Russia’s most influential avant-garde artists has not been on public display for over sixty years since it was acquired by its current owner in the 1960s. Painted in Russia before Larionov’s departure for Europe, the painting has most in common with the works of his Soldier and Turkish series of 19101912, the culmination of the artist’s neo-primitivist period.
The flattened face with text in the upper right of the composition has its origins in the shop signs the artist incorporated in his earlier works. The text deliberately resembles graffiti scrawled across the canvas, a joyfully crude device first seen in his depictions of soldiers, prostitutes and bawdy barrack life, a result of his year of military service in 1910/11.
In 1915 Larionov and Goncharova found themselves in Europe unable to return to Russia because of the war and unable to recover all their paintings they had left behind in their apartment on Trekhprudny Pereulok. In 1918 and 1919 a number of paintings were acquired by IZO Narkompros and eventually entered the Tretyakov Gallery and various provincial museums. The rest of the artists’ property was taken by the architect and restorer Nikolai Dmitrievich Vinogradov to the newly founded Moscow Repository of Contemporary Art. Following the Revolution the extensive programme of nationalisation of property, demolition and reconstruction in Moscow left many artists without a suitable place to work or safely store their artworks. In response Moscow Repository of Contemporary Art was opened in 1918 and headed by Vinogradov who arranged for the transfer of Larionov and Goncharova’s property from their old flat on Trekhprudny pereulok to the Facility’s location.
When the organisation was disbanded with the introduction of NEP in 1922 Vinogradov stored as much of the property as he could in his personal flat and charged a fee for this service. The artist Lev Zhegin acted as an intermediary between Larionov in Paris and Vinogradov and was responsible for the return of the artists’ property from Moscow to Paris in May 1927.
Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev, Portrait of Count Alexei Pavlovich Ignatiev, 1902 (Lot 54) Estimate: £250,000 – 350,000
This painting is a study for the Ceremonial Meeting of the State Council on May 7, 1901 – a large-scale canvas that was conceived and eventually completed by artist, Ilya Repin. Painted on the commission of Tsar Nicholas II to commemorate the centenary of the State Council, the work stars as a highlight of the artist’s major retrospective currently on exhibition the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. At the time the work was painted, Repin was at the peak of his career and accepted the colossal task with enthusiasm, however, having trouble with his right hand, he hired two assistants, including Kustodiev, to aid him.
In preparation for the piece, Repin and his two students executed a great number of studies and sketches to capture the exact poses and facial expression of the members of the Council. This painting depicting Count Alexei Pavlovich Ignatiev, Governor-general of Kiev, Podol, Volhynia and Irkutsk, is one of 27 preparatory portraits completed by Kustodiev. It was met with immediate success and has been exhibited widely in both Russia and Europe, including the Venice Biennale in 1907, and the exhibition of Russian art in Vienna which took place at the iconic Secession building.
Alexei Petrovich Bogoliubov, Sunset in Stormy Weather, Menton, 1885 (Lot 4) Estimate: £180,000 – 220,000
One of the most prominent 19th century Russian seascape artists, Bogoliubov often spent the winter months making studies in Menton, on the Côte d’Azur. Depicting an ancient coastal fort in the centre, this striking seascape exemplifies the artist’s ability to precisely depict the details of everyday life. Exhibited at the 14th Itinerant Art Exhibition in St Petersburg and Moscow, the picture was mentioned in almost every review of the exhibition, noting the artist’s ‘marvellous technical skill’.
Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov, The Oyat River (Lot 34) Estimate: £450,000 – 650,000
The only one of the five known views of the Oyat River by the artist not to currently reside in a public Russian collection, this painting is appearing on the market for the first time in over a decade. One of Russia’s finest landscape artists, Polenov was a highly regarded and popular artist of his time whose works were collected by members of the Imperial family. Dating from 1883, the painting is from a period of the artist’s career rarely offered at auction.
Konstantin Egorovich Makovsky, Boyarina (Lot 14) Estimate: £80,000 – 120,000
An artist who delighted in beauty, Makovsky was one of the most indemand society portrait painters of his day. Renowned for his nostalgic historic paintings, Makovsky was attracted to the subject of pre-Petrine ruling class of the Boyars, and from the 1880s the subject gradually supplanted all others with his portraits of Boyarinas proving the most popular of all. Exemplifying the sheer delight the artist took in depicting the luxurious furs, extravagantly piled-on jewels and heavilyembroidered costumes, this painting is of supreme quality, and is appearing on the market for the first time.
Georgy Grigorievich Nissky, Airfield (Lot 122) Estimate: £60,000 – 80,000
Despite his rising popularity, Nissky was a relatively unknown artist until just 5 years ago. Heavily influenced by Aleksandr Deineka, one of the most important Russian modernist figurative painters of the first half of the 20th century, Nissky is known as the master of the industrial landscape, with his works glorifying Communist ideals. His works are in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, and in most of the major museums of the former USSR, with his first retrospective exhibition ‘Nissky. Horizon’ closing at the Institute of Russian Realist Art (IRRA), earlier this year.
Vladimir Weisberg, Still life with loaves and apples on a burgundy tablecloth, 1949 (Lot 140) Estimate: £80,000 – 120,000
From a very sought-after period of the Moscow NonConformist artist’s career, this still life is possibly the earliest of his works to ever appear at auction. A colourful canvas created before the artist turned to his monochromatic ‘white on white’ paintings, it is one of three works in the sale from the Michael Karminsky Collection – the collection of Soviet NonConformist art in Offenbach, Germany.
Pimen Nikitich Orlov, Portrait of Alexander Nikolaevich Karamzin, 1839 (Lot 7) Estimate: £25,000 – 35,000
This is one of a series of six portraits in the Russian Pictures sale of the Karamzin family. Nikolai Karamzin was a renowned writer and historian who laid the foundation for the future of Russian literature and whose most famous work, a twelve-volume History of the Russian State, was hugely influential.
Executed by two different artists - Jean-Auguste Bard in Italy circa 1835 and Pimen Orlov in Russia between 1836 and 1839, the series depicts Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin’s children – Sofia, Andrei, Alexander, Vladimir and Ekaterina – and Karamzin’s son-in-law, Ekaterina’s husband, Petr Meshchersky, with their son Nikolai.
Orlov was still a student at the Imperial Academy of Arts and a pupil of the leading 19th century portraitist Karl Briullov when he was commissioned to paint the three portraits of Karamzin’s children, Andrei, Alexander and Sofia, to complement the works of Bard. This portrait depicting Alexander was among the group of works the artist presented at the 1836 Imperial Academy of Arts exhibition, where he was awarded a second rank silver medal.
Furniture of Fantasy
A fine and rare Fabergé gold and enamel miniature bonbonnière chair, workmaster Michael Perchin, St Petersburg, circa 1900 (Lot 256) Estimate: £800,000 – 1.2 million
A fine and rare Fabergé vari-colored gold, guilloché enamel and nephrite miniature table bonbonnière, workmaster Michael Perchin, St Petersburg, 1899-1908 (Lot 257)
Estimate: £800,000 – 1.2 million
Related to the surprises found in Fabergé Imperial Eggs and amongst the most artistically creative works by the firm, miniature pieces of furniture are as rare as they are ingenious. Designed by Fabergé’s most famous workmasters, these miniature objects of fantasy were conceived to delight the firm’s very important collectors, such as members of the Imperial Family, J.P. Morgan, Leopold de Rothschild and Maximillian Othmar Neuscheller, amongst others. Many examples subsequently passed to equally prestigious collections all over the world, such as the British Royal Collection, the Hermitage, the Forbes Magazine Collection, King Farouk of Egypt and the Link of Times Foundation, held at the Fabergé Museum in St Petersburg.
In their ability to transform enamel and gold into rich trompe l’oeil mahogany grain and lustrous silks, replicating elegant architectural design on a miniature scale, the present Empire chair and Louis XVI table represent some of the most artistically luxurious works ever made by Fabergé. Made as bonbonnières, both pieces are at once purely whimsical in their scale and inspired in their use of diverse materials to emulate palace furniture, as well as ingeniously functional.
The gold and guilloche enamel Empire style chair, whose front is prominently decorated with a gold knob encircled in laurel was once in the collection of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna and Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia, and was exhibited in the Charity Exhibition of Fabergé Artistic Objects, Old Miniatures and Snuff Boxes in St Petersburg in 1902, which featured pieces from the Imperial Family’s Fabergé collection. The Grand Duchess shared a passion for Fabergé with Empress Maria Feodorovna and her collection was formed of many of the finest pieces ever made by the firm.
One of only a few known examples of its kind, the design of the table by Michail Perchin exhibits Fabergé’s famous whimsy paired with functional design: its top subtly incorporating a hinge to reveal an internal compartment. Once part of the Forbes Magazine Collection, a closely related example exists in the British Royal Collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
A rare Fabergé silver-gilt, enamel and seed pearl tryptich clock and frame, workmaster Johan Victor Aarne, St Petersburg, 1880-1904 (Lot 248) Estimate: £150,000 – 200,000
A rare tryptich format clock enamelled in a vivid and unusual applegreen and oyster-white, only a few comparable examples have ever come to market.
A Fabergé silver-gilt and cloisonné enamel kovsh, workmaster Feodor Rückert, Moscow, 1908-1917 (Lot 258) Estimate: £60,000 – 80,000
Decorated with a polychrome geometric motifs and stylized flowers in green, grey and blue on mustard-coloured grounds, this kovsh with its modern colour scheme is original in style and epitomises the skills of the renowned Russian craftsmen.
Feats of Labour: A Soviet porcelain platter, State Porcelain Factory, Petrograd, circa 1921 (Lot 352) Estimate: £30,000 - 50,000
This early Soviet platter painted by Vasiliy Timorev depicts the Polish front during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919 -1921. Renowned for its strong graphic appeal, agitfarfor, or propaganda porcelain, was one of the favoured tools of the new Soviet states to promote their dreams and ideologies. An identical platter is part of the permanent collection of the British Museum, London.
