A table that once stood in the Russian Imperial Family’s St. Petersburg Winter Palace sold yesterday at Bonhams’ Russian auction in London for $1.4 million. The intricately designed circular table composed of coral, onyx and turquoise fetched more than four times its estimate. Why? Its assured provenance, and “historical importance,” suggested Yelena Harick of Bonhams.
The table, she said, exemplifies the scale and opulence of Imperialist Russian life. Other lots selling above estimates at the $5.2 million auction of decorative art, paintings, and icons, included a silver-gilt and enamel Faberge desk clock, which sold for $168,000, twice its estimate, and and an 1896 icon, St Vladimir “Equal to the Apostles,” which realized $56,000, twelve times its low estimate.
Read more at Bonhams.
