Auction house Dorotheum in Manege

[Евгений]

Peter Wolf is in his eighties, but he still headed by the old masters department Dorotheum, the leading expert in this field. The main capital of the world he knows as his five fingers, but in Moscow for the second time. Reason not to visit the most intensive in terms of the old masters of the market town was the opening of the Salon des Beaux Arts in the Manege, where Dorotheum Moscow is the first time buyers their achievements.

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Peter: "Usually, old masters department at auction house is the smallest. Dorotheum in all different - here it is the largest. Its annual turnover reaches € 20 million, of course, in comparison with the Impressionists and modern art is not so much money, but old masters can not be compared with any one nor the other.

On the old masters quickly be earned. But this is the most stable sector of the art market. Their art has firmly taken its place in art history, and the history of market sales. Compared to her that make modern artists - one-sided. Today sprinkled enough paint on canvas - and you are an artist. At the same time you had to learn everything: work in different techniques, to understand the construction of tracks, to be able to create a spatial perspective.

In my practice there were many amazing stories:

One Japanese man from Florida brought in Dorotheum two magnificent paintings of Goya. First, he showed them to Christie's and Sotheby's, but it works deemed unauthentic. He turned to me and I found out that it really Goya. Simply he was 20 years old when he created these two works, and they can not be called the best examples of his work. Initially, these were murals painted on the walls of a church of Saragossa. With the help of an incredibly complicated techniques they moved to the canvas, and which were in the hands of the Japanese. Today they are in the collections of the Museum of Zaragoza.

On another occasion I was approached a woman who moved to a nursing home and wanted to sell his collection. Two Viennese dealer bought her almost everything, except for one small work, which seemed to them too dark. When I saw her, he was struck to the depths of the soul - it was a sketch of the famous canvas of Murillo's "Two of the Trinity", which is located in the National Gallery in London.

Another was the case when a young man came to work that did not like him or his wife. They wanted to get rid of the picture and asked for her check into a thousand euros. Usually it takes a long period of study in order to be sure that the work is in front of you. But if suddenly dawned on me - it was early Jan Livans, a friend of Rembrandt. Prices had been rising faster than the Rembrandt, and eventually work at the auction went for € 812 thousand

In Russia, we sell a lot more work than, for example, in the U.S.

I am delighted with Moscow and glad that Dorotheum finally got here. Dorotheum - one of the largest auction houses in Europe, we employ around a hundred experts, as the day goes on four or five auctions, and the presence of Russia's market for us is essential.

There simply is not the market, such as in Poland or Hungary - feudal countries. Russian art began to develop only in the XVIII century, but because artists are considered to be the old masters, there was practically no. And this, of course, a big problem. Be that as it may, today, our best clients is the Russians. In Russia, we sell a lot more work than, for example, in the United States. And I think that Russian buyers have gradually accustomed to the old masters. "