ahead of its sale at Christie’s New York on November 15, 2017. Photo: Tolga Akmena/AFP/Getty Images.
Sotheby’s Russian Pictures and Russian Works of Art sales at Sotheby’s on June 1, 2018 in London, England. Russian collectors burst onto the global scene about a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At first, the focus was to expatriate Russian treasures back to Russia. In 2004, Viktor Vekselberg, who was recently sanctioned, paid about $100 million for nine imperial Fabergé eggs from the Forbes family collection. Three years later,
But the love story didn’t last. After the financial crisis, many Russian collectors realized they had bought subpar Western contemporary works or paid inflated prices, said the Moscow dealer. While legendary early 20th century collectors Sergey Schukin and Ivan Morozov built some of the, “there isn’t a single Russian collection now to rival, say, [Christie’s owner François] Pinault’s,” the dealer said.
Shocked that no one seems to be shocked by that...