Important Russian Art at Sotheby's New York - 4 November 2010
Sotheby’s is delighted to present a sale of Important Russian Art on 4 November 2010 in New York, alongside the major autumn auctions of Impressionist & Modern Art. The sale includes select works by many of the greatest names in 20th-century Russian art, including Aleksey Kravchenko, Alexandre Iacovleff and Nicholas Roerich. Highlights from the auction will be on view in Moscow 21-23 October before returning to New York for the sale and exhibition, opening 28 October.
The auction is led by Aleksey Kravchenko’s Indian Fairytale, the most important work by the artist ever to appear at auction (est. $1/1.5 million). The iconic masterpiece definitively speaks to Kravchenko’s place in art history as one of the most dramatic and romantic painters and colorists of his time. Like Kravchenko, Alexandre Iacovleff was greatly influenced by his travels abroad. Un Groupe de Lamas is a monumental work representing a group of lamas at Pei Ling Miao lamasery, which Iacovleff encountered during the second expedition he took with Georges-Marie Citroën in 1932 (est. $500/700,000).
Property from private collections includes Konstantin Korovin’s Flowers over the City, a lyrical landscape that brilliantly captures the atmosphere and colors of Paris at dusk (est. $500/700,000), as well as Zinaida Serebriakova’s Young Girl from the Orient (est. $400/600,000). This important nude from the peak of the artist’s career evokes the techniques of Renaissance masters while remaining thoroughly modern in effect. The sale features multiple works from influential artists including Nicholas Roerich, David Burliuk and Pavel Tchelitchew, as well as an exquisite group of works from the Collection of Gordon P. Getty.
