A previously unknown painting by Russian artist Viktor Vasnetsov, titled “Pilgrims” was discovered in 2003 at a Sotheby’s auction, where it was purchased for 46,000 euros. At the time, it was attributed to an unknown artist from the second half of the 19th century. The painting was later brought to the Russian Museum for further examination and was eventually identified as a lost work from the early period of Vasnetsov’s career, a variation of his 1873 painting “Beggars.”
The painting, now on display in an exhibition dedicated to Vasnetsov at the Russian Museum, is set to be auctioned off on March 16 at a Moscow auction house, with an estimated value of 1.5 million US dollars.
The auction, which will feature 140 lots, includes several notable works of art, including “Landscape with Oxen” by Ivan Aivazovsky, a rare find on the open market, with an estimated value of one million euros.
Another highlight of the auction is a painting by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, “Christ in the Crown of Thorns” from the 1900s, with an estimated value of 40 million rubles. This is the first public sale of one of Petrov-Vodkin’s works in the last five years and it follows the record-breaking sale of his “Still Life with Lilacs” in 2019, which fetched nine million pounds at Christie’s, the highest bid for Russian art at the house in the last 50 years.
Other notable lots include works by Karl Bryullov, Ilia Repin and Nicholas Roerich, with a total estimated value of 1.5 billion rubles, or over 150 million euros.