“Young Peasant Woman” by Abram Arkhipov led a sale of Russian art at Christie’s, which raised £5.32 million, or about $8 million.The London-based auction house said the event had an increased selling rate, demonstrating good demand for Russian works, especially those fresh to the market, with good provenance or exhibition history.The Arkhipov oil-on-canvas work, dating from 1915, with the subject’s face carefully painted and outlying details more broadly brushed in, sold for £398,500 with fees, exceeding a pre-sale hammer-price estimate of £120,000 to £150,000. The work was from a private Danish collection.It was followed in price range by an Ovchinnikov cloisonné enamel icon, which achieved £206,500 against a pre-sale estimate of £25,000 to £35,000. The ogee-arch triptych icon was marked with the Imperial Warrant 1899-1908. There was also competitive bidding for works by Fabergé, with two enameled clocks achieving more than £140,000 and two figure groups from the “Peoples of Russia Series” exceeding £80,000.Among Non-Conformist art, seeing an auction record was established for the artist Dmitry Plavinsky, who died in 2012. His “Vivaldi’s Music Upon the Grand Canal” sold for £140,500. The circular work was executed in 1997 with pencil, oil, acrylic and collage on canvas.The sale had registered bidders from 40 countries around the globe, with 75 percent selling by value and 68 percent by lot. This represents an increase of more than 20 percent on the selling rates for paintings in June 2015.
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