1930-32 Catalogs of German Auctions of Hermitage Artwork
Apart from private sales of Hermitage paintings were public auctions of Hermitage art through the Leipzig auction house, C. G. Boerner. Offered here are catalogs of five such sales occurring from 1930-32 with the following results. 12 x 9-1/2".
$1,100.
Boerner’s “auctions, which sold largely duplicate copies from the Hermitage print room, repeatedly achieved record prices. The revenues were unexpectedly high from rare engravings by Dürer and Rembrandt and English mezzotints as well as French color engravings of the eighteenth century. Rare colored views of St. Petersburg also yielded top prices. ‘The results of the Boerner auction…must be called quite extraordinary,’ a critic commented in early May 1930.” “A representative of…Boerner visited the Soviet Union in 1929, preparatory to an auction of prints and engravings from the Hermitage in May and November 1930 and April 1931. (S)ome bound items and volumes of graphics came undoubtedly from the palace collections..(.) With the success of the graphics sales, Soviet foreign agents looked for more, but their sources soon ran dry given all of the earlier transfers. For example, in 1933 an Antikvariat agent reported in regard to Boerner, ‘Buys drawings and engravings. They have bought much from us. At the present moment, we have no suitable wares for them.’” Treasures into Tractors: The Selling of Russia’s Cultural Heritage, 1918-38, Anne Odom and Wendy R. Salmond (2009), p. 196, 319.
