Russian Works of Art

LIKE so much material where the name is so much part of the game, the exquisite objets d’art fashioned in the Russian workshops of Carl Fabergé have attracted copyists, repro-producers and outright forgers.

BEST known for their period silver by the master English silversmiths, Mayfair dealers Marks Antiques are also making a name for themselves with Fabergé, and, on February 18 and 19, hold a selling Fabergé exhibition at Martyn Cook Antiques, Queen Street, Woollahra, Sydney.

A NEW auction house has opened in London’s West End focusing on Russian art, one of the fastest growing sectors of the world art market.

ATTEMPTING to tap into the burgeoning Russian market, Tajan (20.33% buyer’s premium) appointed Moscow-born Tatyana Barysheva as in-house specialist last year. She is gradually building up a following for sales of Russian silver, vertu and works of art.

COMBINE the perennial appeal of the Fabergé name with the current demand for all things Russian and it has been no surprise to see soaring prices for pieces by this famous firm in recent seasons.

AT the tail-end of a 500-lot sale of Russian pictures and other works of art held by Sotheby’s on May 26 was a small selection of photograph albums and books, two of which are illustrated and briefly described here.

THE first quarter of 2004 was good news for Sotheby’s, with several major stepping stones to putting their bottom line back on the straight and narrow.

RUSSIAN interest in their own heritage propelled the prices of two Imperial Russian subjects in the Albion collection, sold at Bonhams' (19.5/10% buyer's premium) New Bond Street rooms on April 22, to very high levels.

EVERYONE is aware of how rich a thin stratum of Russians have become in the post-glasnost years. The buying power of Russia’s new rich was amply in evidence on March 23 at Bonhams (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) Bond Street when the spectacular 3ft 1in x 5ft 8 3/4in (94cm x 1.74m) canvas, Nero’s Torches, by Henryk Siemiradzki (1843-1902) sold at £260,000 at an otherwise fairly predictable 19th Century Paintings sale.

Sotheby’s announced last week that the Forbes Collection of Fabergé, which had been scheduled for sale at auction in New York in April, has been sold by private treaty to a prominent Russian industrialist.

Using the incentive of financial guarantees, Sotheby’s have secured two spectacular consignments for the New York spring auction calendar: the Forbes collection of Fabergé and pictures from the Whitney collection.

With Sotheby’s £6.7m Russian Pictures sale notching a hatful of records four days earlier, it was hardly a surprise to see some unfamiliar leather jacket-wearing, mobile phone-wielding characters turning up at Gorringes’ (15% buyer’s premium) November 21-23 sale at Lewes to view four paintings from the estate of a Knightsbridge-based lady who had once dealt in Russian objects.

SILVER, VERTU AND RUSSIAN WORKS OF ART £1 = $1.67: Christie’s (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) New York silver department has reasons to be cheerful: their October 21 sale, which saw selling rates of 78 per cent by lot and 82 by value for a premium-inclusive total of $5.95m (£3.56m) was boosted further when New York dealers Shrubsole bought the magnificent Charles II silver-gilt toilet service once in the collection of J.P. Morgan for a low-estimate $450,000 (£269,460) after the sale.

And now for something completely different...A high-rise flat on the outskirts of Glasgow is not the place one would expect to find works of art by the celebrated firm of Fabergé but that was the origin of the finely crafted photograph frame, right, offered on September 26 by Glasgow auctioneers McTears (15% buyer’s premium).

Twice a year Russian silver and icons are included in Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) routine miniature and vertu sales and it was the 44-lot Russian silver section that saw some of the most consistent bidding in this 587-lot July 15 outing.

Russian Works of Art: Alongside the sale of Russian paintings in their Bond Street rooms on May 21, Sotheby’s also followed on the next day with a sale of Russian works of art at their Olympia rooms.

Russian coins seem to fall into a category all their own. Like papal coins and medals they have a worldwide appeal. Perhaps this is because since 1917 there has been a diaspora of Russians.

Russian Works of Art: ALTHOUGH like the silver sale that preceded it, the buying mood was selective for the 343 lots of Russian works of art offered by Sotheby’s Olympia on November 21, it still totalled a respectable £684,000 for the 215 lots that changed hands.

Five days after Sotheby’s auction, a smaller, 152-lot Russian sale comprising works of art and pictures went under the hammer at Christie’s South Kensington’s rooms on November 26 and here too buyers picked over the contents with 60 per cent changing hands.

Russian Myths by Elizabeth Warner, published by the British Museum Press. ISBN 0714127434 £8.99pb