UK: : RUSSIAN PAINTING SELLS FOR OVER £1 MILLION (POUND STERLING) AT CHRISTIE'S IN LONDON

Record ID: 859902

  • Title: UK: : RUSSIAN PAINTING SELLS FOR OVER £1 MILLION (POUND STERLING) AT CHRISTIE'S IN LONDON
  • Date: 30th November 2004
  • Summary: (L!3) LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM (NOVEMBER 30,2004) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) PAN BUYERS IN AUCTION HALL AT CHRISTIE'S VARIOUS OF THE "ST. ISAAC'S ON A FROSTY DAY" PAINTING (2 SHOTS) CU BUYERS WRITING IN THEIR CATALOGUES SV BUYERS WATCHING AUCTIONEER SV AUCTIONEER CALLING OUT BIDS CU WOMAN TALKING ON HER MOBILE PHONE SV AUCTIONEER CALLING OUT BIDS MCU FEMALE BUYER BIDDING SV AUCTIONEER CALLING OUT BIDS SV PEOPLE SPEAKING ON THE PHONE SV AUCTIONEER CALLING OUT BIDS THE "ST. ISAAC'S ON A FROSTY DAY" PAINTING SV BUYERS LOOKING AT AUCTIONEER SV AUCTIONEER POINTING AT THE "WOODED LANDSCAPE PAINTING" MCU MAN TYPING ON A COMPUTER MCU BUYERS IN THE AUDIENCE VARIOUS OF THE "EMPEROR ALEXANDER II AND KAISER WILHELM I IN A CARRIAGE WITH A VIEW OF THE PETER-PAUL FORTRESS" (ST. PETERSBURG) PAINTING (2 SHOTS) "THE STUDY OF A FAMILY PORTRAIT" PAINTING ON THE WALL (2 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 15th December 2004 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
  • City:
  • Country: Russia
  • Topics: Arts,Quirky,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA2OCUEPPG6ZW7DNTBVDNARRN16
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: Russian painting sells for over £1 Million (Pound Sterling) at Christie's in London.
    A painting by Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovskii - "St. Isaac's on a frosty day" - on Tuesday (November 30) sold for £1,250,250 Pound Sterling at Christie's auctionhouse in London. The painting was part of a number of Russian artworks on sale this week at three London auctionhouses - Christie's, Sotheby's and MacDougall's. All three are going head-to-head with sales on Tuesday (November 30) and Wednesday (December 1) respectively.
    Christie's and Sotheby's are forecasting sales in excess of eight million pounds. Other paintings that sold at Christie's were "Wooded Landscape" by Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin for £766,850 Pound Sterling, "Emperor Alexander II and Kaiser Wilhelm I in a carriage with a view of the Peter-Paul Fortress" by Nikolai Egorovich Sverchkov for £341,250 Pound Sterling, and "The Study of a Family Portrait" by Il'ya Efimovich Repin for £1,013,250 Pound Sterling.
    Christie's also held a separate silver and gold auction, and imperial wines go under the hammer at Sotheby's.
    So-called "New Russians" have accumulated vast fortunes, helped by a soaring stock market and rising prices for oil and other raw materials, and now want to spend that wealth on buying works by artists they were taught in school to revere.
    One thing Christie's, Sotheby's and MacDougall's will be desperate to avoid is a repeat of the embarrassing last-minute withdrawal from a Sotheby's auction earlier this year of a painting purportedly by Shishkin.
    A British newspaper reported that the painting was by a relatively obscure Dutchman and worth around 5,000 pounds, but was altered and billed as a work by the Russian realist valued at 100 times that amount.
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