The results of the recent June sales in London are showing that the Russian art market is making a tentative recovery after a dire 2008 and worse 2009. Average prices had increased from US$139,425 to $181,122 between 2006 and 2007 before falling back to $109,945 in 2009. The number of lots sold for more than $1m fell from 29 in 2008 to 14 in 2009. After the height of the boom in 2007 the buy in rate (pictures that failed to sell) soared to 53% in 2008 and the market continued to deteriorate in 2009 with the total Russian sales total for Christie’s, Sotheby’s and MacDougall’s falling from $159m in 2008 to $84m in 2009.

New York’s April auctions paved the way for a partial recovery that continued on into the London June sales. In April Christie’s and Sotheby’s offered a reduced total of 125 paintings, drawings and sculpture(48% less than the same sales in 2009) and their selling percentage increased by 26% with 30% of lots failing to find buyers which is about average for the sector. Also 25% of lots that did sell sold above their estimate as to opposed to 18% in 2009.

The auction rooms are keeping the market afloat by being more selective in what they will put on the block and reducing estimates. For example the mid estimate average price over the June sales was $61,876 which is 45% less than in 2007. Perversely, with demand becoming masterpiece driven, and falling in line with the similar trend that has been apparent in Old Masters and Impressionists for some time, 18 paintings were expected to fetch over $500,000 over the June sales as opposed to 9 during the same week in 2009.

The Christie’s sale of 8^th June made £14,466,129 against a pre-sale estimate of £7-10m selling 76% by lot and 90% by value. Alexis de Tiesenhausen, Director of the Russian department at Christie’s: “The sale sent a strong signal to consignors that demand is high and that knowledgeable buyers from around the world are committed to acquiring works of art. Competitive bidding saw seven of the top ten lots sell above their pre-sale estimates and in total 26 surpassing their high pre-sale estimate. The European Royal Collection of Fabergé objects performed very well and realized a total of £746,025 / $1,083,228, highlighted by a bonbonnière in egg form.”

The highest price was paid for Vasya, by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin which sold for £1,833,250 / $2,661,879 / €2,221,899 against a pre-sale estimate of £250,000 to £350,000. The arresting portrait of a Russian boy not seen since its last public appearance in 1932 was sold to an anonymous telephone bidder. Several dealers quietly expressed their reservations as to the painting’s authenticity prior to the sale but the painting looked fine after a cursory examination and they may have been planning to buy it themselves and trying to put off potential buyers to depress the price.

The highest price in the works of art section was paid for lots 177 and 188, two exquisite Fabergé objects, one a little turkey and the other a lamp, each selling for £193,250 / $280,599. The Fabergé section of the sale was sold 95% by lot and 97% by value confirming a growing interest in Russia’s most famous Imperial jeweler and bodes well for the consortium who bought the Faberge name in 2008 and have started making contemporary Faberge(there is an essay entitled ‘They are aiming for the Tsars’ elsewhere on this website which examines this story).

Christie’s reported that buyers (by lot / by origin) for the entire sale were 70% Europe, 22% Americas, 3% Asia and 4% Middle East.
Other highpoints of the sale included: -

• “A Riverside Farm”, by Mikhail Klodt (1832-1902), an imposing and very detailed Ukrainian landscape, sold for £769,250 / $1,116,951 / €932,331 against an estimate of £700,000-900,000.

• “Roses and Apples”, by Konstantin Korovin (1861-1939) – a stunning still-life which was executed during one of the most important periods of his career – sold for £937,250 / $1,360,887 / €1,135,947 against a pre-sale estimate of £100,000-150,000. This represents the third highest price for a work by the artist sold at auction.

• Princess Maria Tenisheva’s two bronze and enamel boxes and covers, one in the form of a fish, selling for £217,250 / $315,447 and the other in form of a pigeon, selling for £157,250 / $228,327 demonstrate the continued demand for rare and exceptional works of art. The Russian works of art section included five works of art selling in excess of £100,000.

• The European Royal Collection of 45 Fabergé works of art realized a total of £746,025 / $1,083,228 / €904,182 and was highlighted by a jeweled and enameled gold-mounted nephrite egg-form bonbonnière, selling alone for £115,250 / $167,343 / €139,683.

Sotheby’s small sale on June 7^th of Important Russian Art sold 17 of its 26 Lots with the highest price offred for a rare and well provenanced African period work by Alexander Yakovlev entitled Titi and Naranghe which sold for £2,505,250 against an estimate of £700,000-900,000. Yakovlev is a mainstay of the Russian art market along with Ivan Aivasovsky, Nicholas Roerich and Konstantin Korovin. In 2009, for example, he was the 4^th highest selling artist at auction with a turnover of $29,066,620 and the highest number of lots at 220. He holds the third highest price ever achieved for a Russian artwork with $5,561,040 after Konstantin Somov ($7,327,952) and Natalia Goncharova ($6,229,793). And yet despite this success between 2005 and 2009 his buy in rate was a high 38%. Perhaps this is explained by the bizarre discrepancy between the interest in his African works and the lack of it in his European works. For example in this round of sales at MacDougall’s there was a fine Capri period work by Yacovlev of an attractive subject entitled the Fruit girl of Capri which barely floated off on its reserve of £36,000…..so there are still bargains to be had in this uneven and young market.

Another fine lot at Sotheby’s was Yuri Annenkov’s portrait of Zinovii Grzhebin which sold for £1,777,250 against an estimate of £800,000-1,200,000. This was a solid but not spectacular result as another similar sized and dated portrait of another important Russian literary figure Aleksandr Nikolaevich Tikhonov had sold for £2,260,500 on November 28^th 2007 at the height of the market.

MacDougall’s auction of Thursday10th June rounded off the week with a total of £7,563,942. One of their top lots was the perennially popular Nicholas Roerich whose The Black Gobi sold for £790,118. Roerich sold 133 lots in 2009 for a total of $37,272,711 and averaged a buy in rate of fewer than 10% between 2005 and 2009, a percentage only beaten by Ivan Pokhitomov. MacDougall’s also did well with Niko Pirosmani’s Arsenal at Night which sold for £1,075,368 and Aleksandr Volkov’s Wedding which sold for £541,168. Their buy in rate was probably higher than Christie’s and Sotheby’s primarily because they are bravely including more Soviet period paintings in their sales, a period which the Russian collectors are still treating with suspicion but which will become sought after in time. MacDougall’s also achieved £1,592,202 for their inaugural sale of Russian works on paper, an area that is surely undervalued at present. On Monday 7^th June, in their Russian sale, Bonham’s had some successes with their top lots such as Vladimir Weisberg’s Portrait of Guinsberg which sold for £186,000 against an estimate of £50,000-70,000 and Erik Bulatov’s Portrait of Olga Andreeva which sold for £150,000 against an estimate of £80,000-120,000.

To conclude the Russian market is nowhere near the level it achieved in 2007 but it has stabilized and the better paintings are selling if at only 2/3rds of their 2007 levels. The demand is skittish, with many items failing to attract any interest whatsoever, and the only the major pieces with impeccable and watertight provenance that almost guarantees the attribution selling well. The taste of the realistic 19^th century artist such as Aivazovsky and Shishkin would also appear to be fading whilst demand for 20^th century works is in the ascendency.

Popularity: 15% [?]