Exiles and Idealists: A Private Collection of Russian Literary Manuscripts
LONDON – Christie’s Exiles and Idealists: A Private Collection of Russian Literary Manuscripts online auction (17 November to 1 December) realised a total of £876,500 / $1,178,016 / €1,040,405. Registered bidders from 16 countries, across 5 continents, participated in the sale, with 38% of lots sold to new buyers.
The top lot of the auction was A Tiger in the Street by Daniil Kharms (pseudonym of Daniil Ivánovich Yuvachev, 1905-1942), which achieved £75,000 / $100,800 / €89,025. Written in 1936, Kharms was a frequent contributor to Chizh, the most successful children's magazine of its period, published in Leningrad from 1930 to 1941. Further highlights of the sale included an autograph letter from Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1891-1940) to Alisa Gukovna, which achieved £37,500 / $50,400 / €44,513. Written in January 1927, the biographical summary was intended for B.P. Kozmin's Writers of the Modern Era: A Bio-Bibliographical Dictionary of Russian Writers of the Twentieth Century (1928), however the work was swiftly suppressed because it contained an article about Trotsky. An exceptionally rare signed photograph of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov, dated 1927, realised £32,500 / $43,680 / €38,578.
Please find the full results of the sale here.