Russian Painting of the Second Half of the 19th – Beginning of the 20th Century in the World Art Market: Price Versus

Student: Normann Angelika

Educational Programme: History of Artistic Culture and the Art Market (Master)

Year of Graduation: 2016

Nowadays the history of sales of the Russian paintings at the world auctions is attracting increasing attention of both general public and scientific community, including art historians. This study is devoted to main factors characterizing the demand and popularity of the Russian paintings of the second half of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century in the world art market. The author uses a proprietary data base created to address the study goals. The data base includes information about all Russian paintings sold at international auctions in 1987-2016 at the price exceeding 700 thousand US Dollars. This data base is a unique product as its configuration, unlike the existing analogues (Art Price, Art Net, ARTinvestment.RU and the like) allows to group artists by styles and periods and analyze price dynamics of pictures of separate Russian artists and style groups (by years), as a reflection of their popularity fluctuations. The study consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion and appendixes. The introduction is devoted to defining the goal, tasks, relevance, methodology and time frame of the study, the historiographical and source analyses, and a description of the Russian Paintings Data Base parameters. Chapter 1 discusses the history of Russian paintings in the world art market, describes the international auction houses dealing with Russian paintings and the auction types where these paintings are sold, and defines the top segment share in the total sales volume. Chapter 2 contains a retrospective analysis of the top segment Russian paintings sales in the world art market, proposes a classification of the Russian painters by styles and discusses their demand dynamics, analyzes repeat sales of paintings and defines the profitability of the Russian art market. The conclusion summarizes the results of the study’s findings. The study includes tables, diagrams, charts and an album of 34 illustrations.

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