Russia The State Hermitage Museum has acquired 92 water color portrait from the collection of galleries Popoff - one of the most famous Parisian art dealers in the field of Russian art. Representatives of the museum did not identify the amount that was paid for this work, but reported that they had bought them directly from the head of the gallery Baryusha Maurice (Maurice Baruch).

In October of this year auction house Christie's auction held in London, which was billed 550 objects from the collection of Popoff . In addition to porcelain, textiles and works of decorative art, buyers were invited nearly 100 watercolor portraits by Russian artists of the XIX century, such as Karl Bryullov , Orest Kiprensky , Peter Sokolov and Vladimir Hau . Organizers hoped to gain for portraits from 2,5 to 3,5 million pounds, but then managed to sell only 5 of them. And in general results of the tenders were not very comforting - more than half the lots have not found their customers.

Now, an excellent collection of watercolors moved to St. Petersburg. As explained in a telephone interview with Victor Faibisovich - Head of the sector of new acquisitions of the State Hermitage, the purchase was made possible by financial support from Russia's government and private sponsors. Hours of work were brought to the Hermitage, and in the near future direction of the museum plans to present them to the public.

Material prepared Ekaterina Guseva, AI

Source: bloomberg.com , artinvestment.ru