ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Aberdeen Auction Galleries had 118 registered bidders with LiveAuctioneers.com and another 45 registered inhouse for its online/absentee/phone sale of March 14. Auction house owner Alex Turchack had assembled 388 lots of excellent European art, antiques and money to offer to bidders.

The top lot of the sale was a 19½ by 24 inch oil on canvas signed by Alexei Petrovich Bogolubov (Russian, 1824-1896) and titled Night Seascape.

The artist’s history is a fascinating one. After joining the Russian navy, Bogolubov attended the St. Petersburg Academy of Art and became a noted landscape painter by the mid-19th century. He traveled widely in Europe, settling in Paris in 1873. When he died in 1896, he left his entire fortune, around US$6 million, to the Russian Museum and its painting school in St. Petersburg. The school was then named in his honor. This seascape, estimated at $5,000-$8,000, sold for $12,330 to a Massachusetts collector bidding through LiveAuctioneers.com. All prices quoted are inclusive of a 17.5 percent buyer’s premium.

Another oil on canvas, a winter scene with skaters by Morel Jan Evert Sr. the Elder (Dutch 1766-1808), sold for $2,360. The 6 by 8 inch canvas was enclosed in an ornate 14 by 16 inch frame.

Two German lots attracted great interest. One was a late 17th- to early 18th-century German silver and ivory tankard. The ivory body was deeply carved with a mythological scene. The scroliate silver base bears the town mark (two crossed swords) and the maker’s mark ZI (or IZ) in a rectangle. The 10½-inch-high piece bore two more marks, a moon and a cat. It garnered more than 30 bids before closing at $11,163.

A pair of German Kuchex Ruter pistols, 1716-1758, with brass furniture and refitted percussion cap ignitions, brought a winning phone bid of $4,817. Also of interest was a document signed by Russian Tsar Pavel I (1754-1801) only six days after ascending the throne. Dated November 18, 1796, the document puts Colonel Fedor Shavrs in charge of building the new Mikhailivsky Palace in St. Petersburg. The one-page document, framed with a photo of the completed palace, 19¼ by 12¾ inches, sold to a LiveAuctioneers bidder for $2,068.

Twenty lots of international paper monetary notes, mostly European, late 19th- and early 20th century, sold within estimate fromm $100 to $500, and four Russian gold coins also sold as predicted in the $550 to $1,000 range.

Visit Aberdeen Auction Galleries online at http://www.aberdeenauctiongalleries.com, Tel. 727-656-2974.