LONDON, ENGLAND.- Sotheby's Biannual sale of Russian Pictures and Works of Art on Wednesday, December 1, 2004 is set to contain the largest section of works of art to have been included in a Russian sale at Sotheby's to date. It comprises more than 450 lots and will include not only highlights by leading Russian artists such as Aivazovsky, Maliavin, Vereschagin and Shukhaev, but also a very fine section of Fabergé. The sale is expected to fetch in excess of £8,000,000.

RUSSIAN PICTURES - Three of the sale's most significant highlights include The Farandole by the artist Philip Andreevich Maliavin (1869-1940), Market Day in Nizhny Novgorod by Pyotr Petrovich Vereschagin (1836-1886) and The Survivors by Russia's most famous marine painter, Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (1817-1900).

Philip Andreevich Maliavin's oil on canvas The Farandole is a vibrant celebration of Russian folk dancing on a massive scale (407 by 248cm). It is a later variant of Whirlwind, a work from 1906, which hangs in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Maliavin's own humble origins from a small village in Samara account for his fascination with the clothes, traditions and characters of peasant life, which he sentimentally recorded in numerous variations. Depicting a group of Russian peasant women, or babas, swept up in the emotion of their dance, The Farandole demonstrates the elevation of the Russian folk tradition to the subject of high art and the new path of enquiry set for those artists, who, like Maliavin, emigrated to the West. The painting is estimated to fetch £400,000-£600,000.

Pyotr Vereschagin's sweeping panorama of Nizhny Novgorod on Market Day is estimated to fetch £350,000-£450,000.

Brother of the eminent Russian genre painter Vasily Vereschagin, Pyotr Vereschagin is most famous for his impressive landscapes and cityscapes, including views of Moscow, Kiev, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod. Founded in the 13th century, at the confluence of the Rivers Volga and Oka, Nizhny Novgorod occupied a position of strategic importance, both in terms of commerce and security. It became best known for the annual summer fair that was relocated there in 1817, having been held nearby since the early 16th century. It was the biggest fair in the country selling all manner of goods and established Nizhny Novgorod as the chief commercial centre in Russia.

The Survivors, estimated to fetch £350-500,000, is one of the most important highlights among a group of works by Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky to be offered in the sale. Aivazovsky was favoured by Russian Tsars and wealthy European collectors alike for his dramatic seascapes and views of ports in the Southern stretches of the Russian Empire and the Mediterranean. Like many other 19th-century European artists, Aivazovsky shared the Romantic preoccupation with man's place in nature and his insignificance when confronted by the sometimes impossibly harsh conditions of his environment. He produced a series of paintings on the theme of mariners emerging shipwrecked but defiant from a storm of which The Survivors, executed in 1873, is a particularly fine example. The painting depicts the shipwrecked sailors in a lifeboat drifting on the turbulent sea, with their ship - sails dropped - sinking in the waves behind.

A portrait by Zinaida Evgenievna Serebriakova's (1884-1967) of her daughter Katya dated 1934 will also be offered in the sale. A member of the Mir Iskusstva or World of Art exhibiting group which was formed in St. Petersburg in 1898, Serebriakova was not interested in contemporary French Impressionism, but looked towards academic painting for inspiration. Her preferred subjects were those drawn from the life around her, such as Russian peasant women working in the fields, dancers at the Kirov and women washing themselves in the bathhouse.

Throughout the 30s and 40s Serebriakova painted her daughter several times, capturing her asleep in intimate moments, or more formally as in the offered lot, which is estimated at £180,000-£220,000. Despite the posed composition of Katya seated in a wicker chair with her arms crossed, her expression hints at the complex but affectionate relationship between mother and daughter.

An important triple portrait by Vasily Shukhaev's (1887-1973) is estimated to fetch £120,000-£180,000. It depicts his partner Vera, his close friend and colleague Alexander Yakovlev and Shukhaev himself. Shukhaev met Yakovlev at the Higher Art Institute at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Both artists greatly influenced one another and collaborated on a number of projects, including the celebrated double self-portraits (Harlequin and Pierrot, 1914) and the design of the ceiling of the Firsanov residence in Moscow.

The sale will also include a gouache and watercolour on paper by Marc Chagall (1887-1985), View From an Open Window, which is estimated to fetch £135,000-£150,000.