Russian Sales In London

The London Sothby's is due to hold traditional "Russian sales" on Wednesday. According to Joanna Vickery, head of Sothby's Russian department, the auction features a large collection (a total of 256 items) of Russian painters' works, including icons, arts and crafts, painting, graphics, sculpture. She noted that the current auction featured the so-called actual art much better than previous ones. For instance, Lenin and Calder, Leonid Sokov's installation was a success at the Venetian biennale-2001 and is estimated at $45,000. The estimated cost of Zinaida Serebryakova's Russian Bath painted in Paris in 1926 is $295-442,000. The Green Apocalypse by Vladimir Baranov-Rossine has been estimated at around $265,000. The auction also features a portrait of Nicholas II by Boris Kustodiyev, works by Konstantin Korovin, Filipp Malyavin and other painters of the Mir Iskusstva school. Works by Russian underground painters, along with those by "Socialist realists", have been included in the sales too.