Cottage in the Woods Didn’t Turn Into Estate
The Stockholm Auction House (Stockholms Auktionsverk) held the third Russian auction March 15. The prices for paintings by Alexey Savrasov, Vasily Maximov and watercolor and pencil by Karl Piratsky broke the world records.
On Russia's art market, the Stockholm Auction House (Stockholms Auktionsverk) stands apart from others. It sticks to the moderate estimates, and grand promotion is hardly the matter of its policy. But the results are brilliant.
Although the Stockholms Auktionsverk is the oldest auction house in the world, it is not the biggest one. So, it wasn’t forecasted to lure great numbers of Russian buyers, art-dealers and art hunters, who could be often spotted at London Sotheby’s or Christies.
Regardless, a truly good thing would be bought anywhere, anytime and at deserving price, Ivan Samarin, one of the auction arrangers and the Russian art connoisseur, was absolutely sure.
In Stockholm, the success was evident at the first fall of the hammer. "The Embankment on the Neva by the Academy of Sciences” by Vladimir Ammon went for ˆ242,000 instead of the estimate of ˆ33,000 to ˆ44,000 and the rising trend survived afterwards.
The real sensation, for instance, was the watercolor and pencil masterpiece by Karl Piratsky, who is little known to the public at large. His “Courtiers and Military Personnel in the 1812 Portrait Gallery in the Winter Palace” (lot 41) was sold for ˆ352,000 (vs. the estimate of ˆ100,000), which is one of the highest prices ever paid for drawings by Russians.
The cost of Polenov’s "The Residence of Tsarevich Alexander Alexandrovich in the village of Brestovtse, guarded by a Cossack soldier during the Russo-Turkish conflict in the Balkans" jumped ten fold, from ˆ22,000 to ˆ229,000. Vasily Maximov’s "The Widower's Morning" broke this painter’s records and stepped up to ˆ418,000.
The million that is mandatory for any Russian auction of self-respect was secured by Alexey Savrasov. His wet birches and a crow in the puddle ("Cottage in the Woods," around 1871) were sold for reasonable ˆ1.1 million.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 16, 2007
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