Portrait

The Painting department offers pictures and works on paper: oil on canvas, tempera, watercolour, pastel and original printed graphics — etching, lithography, woodcut and screenprint. Russian, European and Soviet schools are represented across portrait, landscape and marine painting, still life, genre scenes, the nude, animal painting, impressionism, the avant-garde, abstraction, pop art and contemporary work, along with old master prints of the 17th–19th centuries.

Descriptions state the artist and their dates, medium and support, dimensions with and without the frame, year, signature and its position, condition and provenance. Photographs are taken in even light and include the reverse, the signature and the frame, showing craquelure, restoration, relining, inscriptions and collection stamps. For prints, the condition of the sheet, margins and quality of the impression are noted.

The artist filter gathers every work by one painter currently on offer — useful if you follow a particular name. Subsection circles divide the department by genre and movement, the search box looks through titles, and sorting by price reveals both affordable prints and the top lots of the sale.

A picture bought at auction can furnish an interior or serve as an investment: works with clear provenance, a signature and an exhibition history are valued higher and resell more easily. Each lot shows its starting price, current bid and closing time.