Vasnetsov's previously unknown painting will be sold at auction for 27 million rubles.

A previously unknown work by Viktor Vasnetsov, Boyarin, with an estimate of 27 million rubles, will be presented at the upcoming auction of the Moscow Auction House on June 8. The painting comes from the collection of the family of the outstanding astronomer Avenir Yakovkin, after whom the lunar crater is named. This was reported to Izvestia on June 2 at the Moscow Auction House.

The painting was attributed as Vasnetsov's original during the preparation for the auction.

"Stylistic features and technique of execution leave no doubt about the authorship of the great Russian artist," said Sergey Podstanitsky, co—founder of the Moscow Auction House.

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The repository of masterpieces of Russian art was created by decree of Nicholas II.

"Boyarin" is of particular interest as a continuation of Vasnetsov's research on ancient Russian costume. Compositionally, the work echoes the famous painting "The Princess at the Window" from the collection of the Chelyabinsk Museum of Fine Arts.

Since its creation in the 1910s and 1920s, the painting has been in the Yakovkin family. Avenir Yakovkin, who discovered the "Yakovkin effect" in astronomy, was a contemporary of Vasnetsov. After his death, the collection passed to his son, polar astronomer Vladimir Yakovkin, after whom the Arctic bay is named.

Other top lots at the auction include Ilya and Yuri Repin's joint work "Portrait of Vera Repina" (estimated at 13 million rubles), Ivan Shishkin's landscape "Gulf of Finland" (20 million rubles) and Konstantin Korovin's "Paris at Night".

The auction will be held on June 8 at 17:00 in a mixed format — face-to-face in Moscow and online.

Earlier, on May 27, Izvestia reported on the upcoming exhibition "High Underground" at the Museum of Moscow. It will open on June 6 to mark the 90th anniversary of the Moscow Metro.