“Top lots – first names” – Kommersant FM

Kommersant FM columnist Dmitry Butkevich talks about which paintings will be presented at the auctions, as well as their significance for the Russian market.

I have known about the ARTinvestment portal since its foundation – since 2008. With this website about investments in art, in addition to the database of international and domestic auction prices for Russian works, which, by the way, I sometimes use, a forum has opened. For collectors and those interested. What battles of minds and wars of intellects there were in their time!

And then, in 2013, their own auction house appeared with weekly online auctions, and in this they were also pioneers. And now it’s a triple anniversary: ​​10 years, 500 auctions and 15 years of the portal. The 500th auction, which starts this week and ends on October 6, will feature a collection valued at RUB 1 billion. Top lots – first names: Isaac Levitan, Vasily Polenov, Konstantin Korovin, Nikolai Feshin, Zinaida Serebriakova.

What are such auctions comparable to, said the head of the auction house ARTinvestment.ru, Egor Molchanov: “Russian auctions, which were held by Sotheby’s, Chrisitie’s and other Western auction houses, have always been a favorite place to visit for Russian collectors, because masterpieces were always offered there.

After this section was closed, Russian buyers no longer had the opportunity to purchase masterpieces at auctions. We decided that we could become a worthy replacement and for the first time in the history of the Russian auction market we provide works of such quality that are sold at auction and are available to the general public.”

The most expensive works of the anniversary auction at the start are “Portrait of a Young Peasant Woman” by Zinaida Serebryakova ($1 million), “Peasant Girl” by Abram Arkhipov ($1 million), $700 thousand reaches the estimate of “Nocturne” by Konstantin Korovin. Let’s see if any of these lots will break the record of the ARTinvestment house (for all the years of its existence), which was set in the spring of this year. Then the painting by Marc Chagall sold for 150 million rubles. ($1.8 million).