MENU
Close
For 175 years, A La Vieille Russie has guarded some of the world's most extraordinary objects, surviving revolutions, exile, and changing empires of taste.
For 175 years, A La Vieille Russie has guarded some of the world's most extraordinary objects, surviving revolutions, exile, and changing empires of taste.
October 2, 2026
Founded in Kyiv in 1851 by Jacob Zolotnitsky, A La Vieille Russie has spent five generations cultivating an extraordinary reputation in antique jewellery, Fabergé, and Imperial Russian decorative arts. To celebrate its 175th anniversary, Sotheby’s is presenting more than 300 treasures from the family’s remarkable collection, with an international exhibition tour beginning at Sotheby’s Paris from October 2 to 6, 2026, ahead of the highly anticipated December auction in New York.
Among the anticipated highlights is an extraordinary Fabergé sedan chair attributed to Henrik Wigström, crafted around 1910 using varicoloured gold, smoky quartz, mother-of-pearl, and guilloché enamel.
Fabergé's fascination with botanical realism appears in a delicate arrangement of violets associated with Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, estimated at $300,000–500,000. An exquisite dandelion fashioned from nephrite, rock crystal, and diamonds carries an estimate of $250,000–350,000.
Beyond Fabergé, the collection encompasses Swiss mechanical automata, including an early nineteenth-century creation by Henri Maillardet, alongside European gold boxes, imperial silver, and religious icons.
A painting depicting the Bay of Yalta by Ivan Aivazovsky, estimated at $600,000–800,000, further demonstrates the remarkable breadth of the collection.
Together, the A La Vieille Russie collection illuminate an era when technical ingenuity, precious materials, and artistic imagination converged in objects intended for Europe's wealthiest patrons.
