$10mln bid beats recent Russian art sales record at Christie`s
An early 20th-century Russian painting was sold at a record price of $10 million at Christie`s art sale Monday, breaking the previous record for a Russian painting set last week, the London-based auction house said.
Natalia Goncharova`s Apple Picking was sold for 4.9 million pounds ($10 million), almost five times its estimate and 30% up on the price fetched by a Konstantin Somov painting last Wednesday.
"Konstantin Somov`s The Rainbow was sold for 3.3 million pounds ($6.5 million), but was able to retain its record price status for five days only," Christie`s spokesman Vitaly Ryazantsev said, adding that the winning bid for the 1927 picture was more than six times its top estimate.
Previously, the highest-priced Russian painting was Somov`s 1922 Pastorale Russe, sold for 2.7 million pounds ($5.31 million) at a Christie`s sale last November.
Apple Picking, painted in 1909, dates back to the most productive period in Goncharova`s career, when she was inspired by Russian icon painting and folk motives, as much as by French Impressionist and post-Impressionist painters, notably Paul Gauguin.
A series of auctions featuring imperial and avant-garde art from Russia kicked off in London last Tuesday as Sotheby`s held its largest-ever Russian sale, featuring some 550 lots. The highest value lot - an early-20th-century Still Life with Jug and Icon by Mikhail Larionov, Goncharova`s husband - went for 2.26 million pounds ($4.45 million), more than a double its 1 million pound estimate.
Russian artworks was also up for sale last week at MacDougall Arts Ltd., an auction house established in London three years ago especially to cater for post-war and contemporary Russian art.
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