To Russia With Love

Sotheby's was supposed to kick off its sale of the Rostropovich-Vishnevskaya Collection in London tonight, but the auction was canceled yesterday after Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov went ahead and bought all of the lots — for an undisclosed sum significantly more than its $40 million high estimate.

Usmanov now owns 450 pieces of art ranging from Boris Dmitrievich Grigoriev's Faces of Russia (below) to pieces from the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory that were originally acquired by the celebrated Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who died earlier this year, and his wife, the soprano Galina Pavlovna Vishnevskaya.

Usmanov has said that he'll return the entire collection to Russia — Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya fled their native country in 1974, and the works they bought were kept in their London and Paris apartments. Whether he'll turn it over to the state or maintain it privately, he hasn't yet decided, according to Bloomberg.com. This is an instance where a private collector might better serve the public by building his own museum rather than making a gift to an institution, given that a report issued this summer found that 160,000 objects have disappeared from Russian museums in the last 80 years.

No doubt this coup for Sotheby's will be cited as evidence that the art market is strong and November sales won't disappoint.

Photo Credit: Sotheby's