Russian Art at Auction - and Around the World On April 16, 2011, Gene Shapiro Auctions LLC in New York City will be offering over 400 lots of Russian fine and decorative art at auction, plus European and Latin American highlights.
News-Antique.com - Mar 29,2011 - Gene Shapiro Auctions LLC has announced their Spring Auction of Russian Art will take place on April 16, 2011 during “Russian Art Week” in New York City. Both the auction and a full week of preview exhibition starting on April 9th will take place at the company’s location at 506 East 74th Street, New York, NY 10021, with the auction itself beginning at 10:00 AM New York Time on the 16th. The founder of the company, Gene Shapiro, is upbeat about both the quality and quantity of works that his eponymous firm will be offering, “With rising commodity prices and prominent buying by Russian buyers in the news, many private American collectors decided that now was the time to sell works that have been in their collections for years. As a result, we were able to obtain a lot of great consignments for this auction.” Indeed, on offer at Gene Shapiro will be more than 400 lots of paintings, bronzes, icons, enamel, silver, porcelain, rare books and maps, swords and militaria, posters, and works on paper, most of which are fresh to the market.
While Gene Shapiro has always sought to include Russian applied and decorative arts and “works of art” in his auctions along with fine arts such as paintings and sculpture, the auction house has significantly widened the breadth of its offerings in this respect. Shapiro notes, “We wanted to have something for everybody in this auction – from collectors of antique icons, to rare books, to buyers of Imperial Russian porcelain. We were helped greatly in this regard by several significant consignments from American families whose grandparents were buying and importing artworks from Russia in the 1930s. One of these collections came from the family of Dr. Adolphus Rumreich, who served as the physician at the United States Embassy in Moscow from 1935-1938. While there, he and his wife, Edna Irene Hall Rumreich, assembled a sizeable collection of Russian pre-revolutionary art and books then being sold by the Soviet government. They often accompanied American Ambassador to the Soviet Union Joseph Davies and his wife, Marjorie Merriweather Post , the most prominent American collectors of Russian artworks of the 20th Century, when they visited Torgsin and other Soviet agencies selling antiques to foreign dignitaries. Another American collection including important sets of Imperial Porcelain and early 19th and 18th Century icons was consigned by a family whose Grandfather was a diplomat in the Italian Embassy to the Soviet Union during the 1930s, and who was actively acquiring Russian works of art during his time in Moscow.
Amongst the rare and exceptional works of art from these two private collections are a rare 18th Century icon depicting the lives and works of Saint Nikolai Chudotvorets and Saint Christopher with elaborate basmany oklad ($5,000-6,000), a collection of 82 pieces of Imperial Porcelain from the Babigon Service, with both Nicholas I and Nicholas II hallmarks ($30,000-40,000); a very finely painted 19th Century Porcelain Tea Service by the Popov Factory ($8,000-12,000); volumes II
