By: Mike Collett-White
LONDON (REUTERS).- Russian art sales in London this week met expectations but failed to match dramatic recent rises in other sectors of the market, particularly impressionist, modern and old masters. Sotheby’s, Russian specialist auctioneer MacDougall’s and Christie’s all held twice-yearly sales this week, and, with one relatively minor auction to go at MacDougall’s, the overall tally was nearly 43 million pounds ($63 million). That was in line with pre-sale estimates and slightly higher than the previous series of sales in late 2009 but well short of levels seen as recently as 2008, the end of the boom in Russian art fueled largely by wealthy tycoons grabbing a piece of their country’s heritage. The ART Report’s latest analysis of the sector estimates that last year, total sales of Russian