LONDON, ENGLAND.-The Russian Sale at Sotheby’s in London realised a record total of £22,243,600 ($38,445,838), against a pre-sale estimate of £12-£16 million, bringing the combined total for this year’s Russian sales at Sotheby’s worldwide to £56,360,381 ($102,511,790). The sale, which included more than 400 lots, many from private collections and fresh to the market, was extremely well-attended and attracted over 500 buyers and bidders.

Commenting on today’s sale, Jo Vickery, Head of Sotheby’s Russian department, said: “We are thrilled with today’s results, which together with our Olympia Russian sale has brought a combined total of £23,778,520. This strong sale attracted several new buyers from Russia who were selective and were looking for works of quality with good provenance – demonstrated by the results of the James Theakston Collection. We observed particularly strong bidding for 20th-century Russian pictures, Russian porcelain and pieces by Fabergé.”

The top lot in today’s sale was the painting Still Life with Flowers by Ilya Ivanovich Mashkov – a founding member of the Moscow based avant-garde movement Bubnovy Valet or “Jack of Diamonds” group – which achieved a record for the artist at auction and is the highest price ever paid for a painting by a Russian artist in a Russian sale. The oil on canvas brought a total of £2,136,000, more than seven times its pre-sale high estimate of £300,000. The top selling lot in the works of art section was a pair of Imperial porcelain vases, circa 1840 and period of Nicholas I (1825-185), which performed exceptionally well and realised £1,520,000 against an estimate of £600,000-£800,000. Another major sum paid for an item in the works of art section and for a piece of Fabergé, was for a unique two-colour gold, silver and guilloché enamel clock. Its rare colour combination of yellow and rose Pompadour is reflected in the price paid of £926,400 – exceeding its pre-sale high estimate by more than £650,000. The piece was strongly competed for so much so that when it finally sold, everybody in the saleroom broke into applause.

Today’s sale also featured paintings by Konstantin Alexeevich Korovin, whose oil on canvas The Picnic brought a total of £904,000 (Est: £200,000-£300,000), Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky, whose Mount Ararat realized £870,400 (Est: £450,000-£650,000) and Boris Dmitrievich Grigoriev, whose The Commissar totalled £467,200, more than five times its low estimate of £80,000. Among the private collections in the sale, The Collection of Mr James Theakston, which included paintings by Konstantin Andreevich Somov and Sergei Arsenevich Vinogradov brought a total of £1,061,200, exceeding its high estimate by more than £350,000.