This week London’s premier auction houses and arts venues are taking part in the third Russian Art Week in London. Auctions of rare and valuable Russian paintings, icons, Fabergé and works of art are being held at all the major auction houses, alongside a series of exhibitions of work by contemporary Russian artists.
The second Russian Art Week in June saw a staggering £50 million exchanged for masterpieces by the likes of Shishkin, Roerich, Mashkov and Fabergé and this week looks set to continue the trend.
MacDougall’s will be presenting Bathers at the Lido, Venice (£500,000-700,000), a rare painting by Leon Bakst depicting Nijinsky and Diaghilev; Ilya Mashkov’s Bathers (£600,000-800,000) and a stunning jewelled double photo frame by Fabergé are set to be the stand out lots at Christie’s while Sotheby’s has an avant-garde masterpiece by Robert Falk: Man in a Bowler Hat (Portrait of Yakov Kagan-Shabshai), estimated to fetch between £2.5-3.5 Million. Bonhams, who broke records with their sale of Nicholas Roerich’s Madonna Laboris, will be featuring another work by the artist, Kanchenjunga, valued at £800,000 to £1.2 million.
In addition to the auction houses, several galleries in and around London will be hosting Russian exhibitions. Highlights include two Cork Street exhibitions: International Modern Masters at The Gallery in Cork Street with works by Oleg Trofimov and Andre Kohn among others; and Saint Petersburg Gallery which will be presenting works by Cubo-Futurist Vladimir Baranov-Rossiné.
