This week, Christie’s International and Sothey’s have one auction each, focusing on the decorative arts, that may tally $11.7 million. Russian painting, a category which typically sees the biggest fireworks, is missing for the first time since at least 2006.

Christie’s estimates it will raise $2.9 million to $4.3 million from 176 lots today. Sotheby’s 376 lots are forecast to fetch $5.2 million to $7.4 million tomorrow.

There are many gems among the bronze horsemen, silver cups, porcelain plates and Faberge clocks. Here are the highlights.

Christie’s

Ivan the Terrible, white-bearded and hunched over in a carved wooden chair, solemnly regards his younger sixth wife sleeping on a bed nearby. The scene is enameled on the surface of a 5-inch-long (12.7 centimeter) box. The central image is surrounded by elaborate enameled patterns bursting with orange, purple and blue. The piece has a mark of Feodor Ruckert, a Faberge work master, and is estimated at $200,000 to $300,000.

A rectangular Faberge desk clock is elegant and chic, enameled in translucent lilac color. Its shimmering surface is adorned with entwining silver-gilt wreaths and drooping lily-of- the-valley blossoms. The clock was originally presented to Baron Marochetti, the Italian Ambassador in St. Petersburg between 1886 and 1900. A nearly identical clock was acquired by Queen Elizabeth II, according to Christie’s. The estimate: $150,000 to $250,000.

A diamond-set maid-of-honor brooch cypher, consisting of letters M and A beneath the imperial crown, may fetch $70,000 to $90,000. Designed by famed royal jeweler Hahn, it was presented to Countess Olga Alexandrovna Nieroth on Oct. 2, 1904. The letters are the initials of Nicholas II’s mother, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, and his wife Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.

Sotheby’s

An enamel cigar box made in 1912 depicts Napoleon Bonaparte in an overcoat and white suit standing by the burning walls of Moscow’s Kremlin. Floral patterns frame the central image, inspired by a painting from Vasili Vereshchagin’s “1812” series based on the French emperor’s failed Russian campaign. Estimate: $150,000 to $250,000.

A 4.5-inch gold cigarette case starring a four-carat diamond and red enamel geometrics was once given as a gift to a Cossack general by the “grateful” citizens of the Taganrog district he presided over. It was designed about 1900 by master jeweler Carl Blank and has an estimate range of $110,000 to $130,000.

A Faberge lamp, which had belonged to the late banker Edmond J. Safra and his wife Lily, is forecast to sell for $100,000 to $150,000. The lamp is adorned with silver-winged lions at the base and the baluster stem rises from acanthus leaves, a frequent motif of Corinthian columns.

© Bloomberg. 16 April, 2012 

Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, is delivering his traditional Easter address to Orthodox believers.

­I address you, dear brothers and sisters, with this Paschal greeting: Christ is risen!

This greeting, which we have inherited from the days of holy apostles, proclaims divine truth and asserts a historical fact. Indeed, 2,000 years have passed, but nobody can say that this greeting is no longer relevant. It is living and effective, and this alone manifests divine power and truth.

The greeting that you have just heard and that you will pass to each other later today contains a great hope, because our Lord Jesus Christ, being without sin, in other words not having sinned before men or before God, was crucified, and before that subject to suffering, torture and humiliation.

How often, when facing suffering, especially suffering inflicted by other people, we become anxious and desperate. We think that it is unjust for us to suffer, that we don’t deserve this. We resist injustice. Believers often say that by being reviled they are bearing their cross.

So why is apostles’ greeting, ‘Christ is risen!’, a sign of hope for us? It’s because if Christ, who was without sin, suffered, we, too, should remember our Lord and Savior when facing injustice, slander, malice and lies.

Every one of us, even those who suffer unjustly, has some personal sins, some wrongdoings. This alone means that we can regard our suffering as a punishment for our wrongdoings.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, who had not committed any wrongdoing and had never lied, accepted reviling from people and even agreed to be put to death being innocent.

The Lord has taken the way of the cross, and now He encourages us to follow Him and remember that resurrection follows the cross.

The Lord has risen from the dead, and this resurrection is His victory over all those lies.

We believe that as we proclaim, with faith and hope, that Christ is risen, we too are heirs to everything Christ entrusted to His apostles, because Easter, the day of Christ’s resurrection, is a day of great hope, which should strengthen us in our sorrows, help us overcome hardships, cope with injustice and move forward remembering that Christ defeated evil, which means that we too should overcome evil in our lives, through the power of God, the power of prayer and the power of faith.

That is why the holy day of Easter is a celebration of hope for all people.

I would like to share the joy of this celebration and the joy of Christian hope with you. Let this hope give you strength to go through your life, following the great, unfading and shining image of the risen Christ.

CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED HE IS RISEN!

© Russia Today. 15 April, 2012

Saint Nicholas Church in the tiny Belarusian village of Kraesk is home to a bronze bust of Emperor Nicholas II.

The bust was created in bronze by Russian sculptor Vladimir Zelyanko, and installed in 2008 marking the 90th anniversary of the murder of Tsar Nicholas II.

The inscription plaque reads: Holy Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II. This bust - our gratitude to the Holy Royal Martyrs of Heaven for protecting us believers, Christians, and our Orthodox parish of Kraesk. 

Kraesk has a population of 340 inhabitants and is approximately 40 km from Minsk, the capital of Belarus.

A second bust of Nicholas II was presented to the regional museum in Mogilev by the former mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov in 2009.

During the years 1915-1917, Mogilev served as Stavka, the headquarters of the Russian Imperial Army. It was here that Nicholas II spent long periods of time as Commander-in-Chief, often accompanied by his son and heir, the Tsesarevich Alexei. 

© Paul Gilbert @ Royal Russia. 14 April, 2012

Saturday marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of prominent Russian politician Pyotr Stolypin.

More than 20 conferences, exhibitions and seminars, dedicated to the event, will be held in Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine.

Stolypin served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers under Emperor Nicholas II in Russia between 1906 and 1911.

He is widely known for his agrarian reforms and his push for changing Russia’s electoral legislation.

Stolypin also dissolved the Second State Duma in 1907 in a move that put an end to the 1905 Russian Revolution.

© The Voice of Russia. 14 April, 2012

On 3 April 2012, the chandelier at the Hermitage Theater was lowered for its annual cleaning and bulb-changing.

The Adolphe Morand Bronze Works were founded in Saint Petersburg in the mid-1850s under the auspices of the Electroplating House of Maximilian, Duke of Leuchtenberg, and continued to operate through 1917. The Works carried out numerous orders for the Imperial Palace, with their bronze creations frequently adorning the city’s grand ducal palaces.

In 1899-1900, Adolphe Morand fabricated chandeliers for the Jordan Staircase and the St. George, Coat-of-Arms and the Nicholas Halls of the Winter Palace. Yet, the Works’ first creation to receive widespread acclaim was the chandelier at the Hermitage Theater in 1889. With its intricate design and imposing proportions, the chandelier was originally intended to be equipped with electric bulbs, thereby making it possible to forego the single large-sized and twelve smaller oil-lamp chandeliers that had theretofore been used to illuminate the Theater.

The pear-shaped chandelier (such designs first became popular in the 1840s) is richly-ornamented and features Louis-XVI stylistic elements. The fixture’s multi-element bronze sconces, shaped like floral shoots, and opulent hoop designed to resemble acanthus leaves, were gilded using the electroplating method. The unique lighting effect is created by the manner in which the chandelier’s high-quality, possibly Bohemian, crystal plays in the light.

© State Hermitage Museum. 14 April, 2012

Easter service at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow last year 

According to a poll conducted by the Levada Center, an absolute majority (about 90%) of Russian citizens will celebrate Easter on April 15, Interfax has reported.

Traditional Easter cakes will be baked, eggs painted, Easter curd puddings made and presents given to relatives and friends.

28% of respondents polled recently said they will celebrate Easter at home over a meal, and 26% said they will go out to see friends. 23% of those polled said they would see their dead relatives' graves, which, strictly speaking, is at odds with the church tradition.

Only 7% of those surveyed said they would join the night-time Easter church service and most of them (10%) are pensioners.

6% of respondents said the will not mark this church holiday at all, and most of them are business people (13%) and students (12%).

Women celebrate Easter one way or another more often than men, the Levada Center said. But men prefer to go out to see their relatives and friend on Easter.

Leading up to the Easter festivities in Moscow, catering enterprises and confectioner's workshops baked about 900 thousand Easter cakes, head of Moscow Trade and Service Department Mikhail Orlov said at a press conference.

About 90 million eggs were delivered to Moscow shops for Easter holidays, Orlov said.

Charitable dinners and tea parties will be organized for over 5 thousand Muscovites with low income.

Over 50 thousand of citizens with low income, disabled persons, war veterans will receive free Easter cakes.

© Interfax. 13 April, 2012

The governor of Germany’s Nobitz municipality Hendrik Labe announced plans to search for the legendary Amber Room, looted by Nazi Germany during the World War II, in a local forest, the Bild newspaper said on Tuesday.

Labe said the search would be conducted on the border between the eastern German states of Thuringia and Saxony. Digging is due to begin this spring.

He sited research by amateur historian Thomas Kuschel, who collected wintesses' statements about the last days of the war. He also conducted a geoelectric sounding of the area, which revealed cavities measuring 70 by 40 meters deep in the ground.

“I’m sure we will eventually find something here,” Bild quoted Kuschel as saying.

Labe is not the first German official to announce a search for the legendary treasure, housed at the Catherine Palace near St. Petersburg and looted during WWII by Nazi Germany. It was brought to Konigsberg (Kaliningrad) and its further whereabouts were lost in the chaos at the end of the war in 1945.

The Amber Room is also being searched for by Heinz-Peter Haustein, the mayor of Deutschneudorf in Saxony. The search is being conducted in an abandoned copper mine in the Ore mountains, where a radar screening revealed a large amount of metal, believed to be too dense for copper.

Haustein said that the search in Nobitz is unlikely to yield any result. He added that the treasure hunting in the Ore mountains will resume after Easter.

The Amber Room is the 18th century chamber of amber panels, which was given by Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm I to Russia's Peter the Great as a gift in 1716.

The six-ton treasure, dubbed the "eighth wonder of the world," is decorated with pure amber panels, mirrors and precious stones.

Only two small elements of the room's decoration were eventually rediscovered and returned to Russia.

A partial replica of the Amber Room has been recreated according to available blueprints at Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg.

© RIA Novosti. 13 April, 2012

These two portraits of the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna are little known in the West, and therefore may be new to many people.

The artist, Emil Wiesel (1866-1943), also served as museum curator and a board member of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg from 1914.

The above portraits of the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (nee Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin) were painted by Wiesel in 1900 (left), and 1910 (right). The grand duchess served as the last President of the Imperial Academy of Arts after the death of her husband, the Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich in 1909.

© Paul Gilbert @ Royal Russia. 12 April, 2012

Prince Ioane Bagratoni