Russian Pictures at Auction in 2025

A Piotr Konchalovsky Bridge with Horse (1921), oil on canvas 67 x 82cm, trotted into Doyle’s New York saleroom on 10 June 2025. The work sees Konchalovsky at his Cézannesque best, and duly sparked what Doyle called ‘a Transatlantic bidding war’ before selling to a European buyer for $540,250… ten times the estimate.

Doyle had assigned the piece an asinine $40,000-60,000 estimate that bore no relation whatsoever to commercial reality. Konchalovskys have sold for over $1,000,000 nearly a dozen times, but it looked as if Doyle had never heard of him. If they’re that clueless about art they might as well sell potatoes or used tires. Incompetent valuations do the market no favours. Bridge with Horse had been in private European hands ‘for more than half a century’ asserted Doyle implausibly, as if desperate to sink the painting beneath a tide of Trumpian All-American patriotism. Estimates should be commensurate with market conditions – not with reflecting the wishes of some lawyer desperate to get rid of the estate of some little old lady. If there’s no reserve just say so – don’t treat your clients as fools by publishing fantasy estimates!

BRIDGE WITH HORSE, P. KONCHALOVSKY (LOT 13) — DOYLE AUCTIONS

It might have helped had the auctioneers identified the work’s location: the artists’ haven of Abramstevo, an hour north of Moscow, where Konchalovsky is known to have summered in 1921 – and where he had drawn the very same bridge in 1911 (now in Tula Fine Arts Museum). Konchalovsky also painted the bridge in 1920: a larger work than the one at Doyle, and owned by the Konchalovsky Foundation (chaired by the artist’s film-director grandson Andrei).

Bridge with Horse was included in the Konchalovsky solo exhibitions at the Tretyakov in 1922 and the Chambre Syndicale des Curiosités et des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1925. It was also one of 13 Konchalovskys unleashed on the 1924 Venice Biennale – the first at which the Soviet Union was represented (the Pavilion was dominated by Annenkov’s huge Portrait of Trotsky, since destroyed). Bridge with Horse did not feature in the blockbuster, Gazprom-sponsored Konchalovsky exhibition held at the State Russian Museum and the Tretyakov in 2010.

Unlike many artists of the Russian Avant-Garde, Konchalovsky remained in the Motherland after the Revolution – much to the detriment of his style of painting, which succumbed to a mushy brushwork and slushy sentimentality epitomized by his colossal 208 x 331cm view of sun-kissed Pioneers (1939), now in the State Russian Museum:

PIONEERS, P. KONCHALOVSKY — THE STATE RUSSIAN MUSEUM

Artists in Soviet Russia, if they wanted to make a living, had to conform to State aesthetics and the Stalinist diktats of Socialist Realism. The once-rebellious Ivan Vladimirov was another victim, as I explain in my book Russia Accursed.

Or take Boris Kustodiev, who declined rapidly from the idiosyncratic heights of his Procession by St Basil’s (1921) – sold for £952,500 at Sotheby’s London on November 25 (Lot 48, est. £300-500,000) – to the twee banality of On the Riverbank – Spring (1927), offered by Bonhams with an estimate of £15-20,000 in 2012 (no wonder it failed to sell).

Or take Ilya Mashkov. He was once, like Piotr Konchalovsky, a leading light among the Jack of Diamonds group. In 1910 he produced one of the most startling double-portraits ever painted (of himself with Konchalovsky, and also to be found in the State Russian Museum)… yet he was later reduced to churning out pictures of dams, radiant Collective Farmworkers and an altarpiece dedicated to Soviet Bread – painted in 1936 when parts of the U.S.S.R. were afflicted by cataclysmic famine.

SUPERSTAR AYVAZOVSKY

Demand for the prolific Ivan Ayvazovsky remains buoyant, even if we no longer have a London Russian Week for him to headline. Sotheby’s allocated three Ayvazovskys to their Old Master & 19th Century Paintings sale on 2 July 2025. His Ship at Anchor in Calm Waters (1887), 70 x 110cm, docked at £1,064,800 (Lot 32, est. £300,000-500,000). It had been in private hands for many years and was appearing at auction for the first time. The setting is said to be the Mediterranean near Nice, although there is no visual evidence to that effect. The year 1887 also saw an Ayvazovsky solo exhibition in Paris and yielded a larger and more dramatic  Shipwreck off the Black Sea Coast, sold by Sotheby’s for £2,300,000 in December 2020.

SHIP AT ANCHOR IN CALM WATERS, I. AYVAZOVSKY (LOT 32) — SOTHEBY’S

The other two works sold at Sotheby’s on July 3 were slightly earlier and far smaller: Ship in Full Sail on a Moonlit Night (1875) from a Brazilian Private Collection, oil on canvas 47.5 x 62cm, at £177,800 (Lot 821, est. £120,000-180,000); and Ship in Choppy Seas (1881) from a Swiss Private Collection, oil on board 22.5 x 30cm, at £190,500 (Lot 810, est. £60,000-80,000).

Ayvazovsky is definitely top dog as far as Russian artists are concerned. If you’re lucky enough to own one it’s a slam-dunk you can sell it next day. I don’t remember any Ayvazovsky failing to sell at Sotheby’s in the last few years. They sell like hot cakes!

Sotheby’s sold four major Ayvazovskys in London inside ten days just before Christmas. On November 25 his epic canvas The Survivors (1878), 195 x 266cm, soared to £4,200,000 (Lot 21, est. £2,000,000 – 4,000,000) and his Rest by the Sea on a Moonlit Night (1880), 104 x 148cm, made £1,020,000 (Lot 23, est. £400-600,000). I was stunned that this humdrum offering sold so well – it’s so gloomy you can hardly see the cart and cows reclining on the beach bottom right.

HEAVY SEAS, I. AYVAZOVSKY (LOT 31) — SOTHEBY’S

On December 3 Heavy Seas (1889), 89 x 132cm, swelled to £660,000 (Lot 31, est. £500-800,000). There’s nothing here but murky grey waves and clouds, but Ayvazovskys don’t have to be high-quality to bring big money. I didn’t consider bidding for this picture, either.

CLOUDS, I. AIVAZOVSKY (LOT 307) — SOTHEBY’S

On December 4, by way of contrast, Sotheby’s proposed a small but captivating painting, wanly titled Clouds (1865), that gusted to a hefty £978,000. It epitomized Ayvazovsky’s dramatic skill: a ship founders in towering waves as a figure on the adjacent rocks brandishes a fiery torch like a one-man lighthouse. The transparent spray embodies brushwork at its most refined. The £60-80,000 estimate was just as surprising as Doyle’s valuation of their Konchalovsky. I suppose it had something to do with picture’s size – just 32 x 41cm – but the small scale merely served to underline Ayvazovsky’s prodigious technique.

WELLENGANG AUF HOHER SEE, I. AYVAZOVSKY (LOT 3236) — KOLLER AUCTIONS

Meanwhile Koller Auctions (Zurich) sold Ayvazovsky’s Wellengang auf Hoher See (1898), 61 x 94cm, for CHF1,690,000 (£1,230,000) on September 19 (Lot 3236, est. CHF200-300,000). This shows a giant turquoise wave silhouetted against a thunderous grey-black sky: an intimidating tour de force.

There was a time when the woodscapes of Ivan Shishkin were almost as common and costly at auction as Ayvazovsky seascapes – but the last seven-figure Shishkin in the saleroom was Sukhostoi (1897) at Christie’s London in 2019, when it fetched £1,030,000. Shishkin was, of course, a far less prolific artist than Ayvazovsky – whose works appear often enough at auction to keep his army of collectors happy on a regular basis.

Boris Grigoriev’s Toilers of the Fields (c.1920) scored $550,000 at Heritage Auctions (Dallas) on December 17 (Lot 69001). The sale also had two portraits by Boris Grigoriev: one of an Actress (c.1924) at $450,000 (Lot 69003), the other of Gladys Roosevelt (c.1922) at $187,500 (Lot 69002). The day before Heritage dispatched a Makovsky portrait of Grand Duke Kyrill (c.1900), consigned by A La Vieille Russie, 61 x 50cm, for $175,000 (Lot 84162).