Russia’s answer to Jack Vettriano
ON Radio Four’s Desert Island Discs of April 28 the castaway was painter Jack Vettriano (b. 1954). When asked by presenter Sue Lawley how much he thought his celebrated oil, The Singing Butler, would sell for at Sotheby’s on April 19, Vettriano’s response was that it would exceed the top estimate of £200,000.
As I write, the sale has yet to take place, but whatever it fetches, much of the art cognoscenti wil…