Russian Art Auctions In London Report Slow Sales

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Nov 29th 2008 at 9:02AM

Earlier this year, practically every art auction story had a rich Russian attached to it. But this week London's Russian art auctions followed the same gloomy track that the New York art auctions took earlier this month. Many of the sales struggled to hit their lowest pre-sale estimates. BBC News reports on the sales noting that last year a Faberge egg sold to a Russian collector for £8.9 million but there were not similar big sales this year. The top end of the market has suffered greatly as sellers try to adjust to the new pricing reality while the middle of the market continues to sell things at a steady but lower rate. The low sales results also undo some of the work that Sotheby's and Christie's have done in trying to get Russian collectors to put pieces up for sale as those who have pieces to sell might be inclined to wait out a down market.

Of course some beautiful pieces did find a home. The piece above, a Faberge gold snuff box depicting the Sacrifice of Iphigenia and tied at the top with a diamond-set bow did very well at the Sotheby's auction on Wednesday. It was estimated to sell for £60,000-80,000 but went for £373,250.

Tags: auctions, christies, faberge, russia, sothebys