Andrei Tolstoy answered questions from the magazine SALON-interior, and also advised us on the selection of things.

SALON: What do you think about this Antique Salon?

- Antique salons in the CHA, in my opinion, from year to year are becoming more and more representative and are getting more and more luxurious design. In recent years, many galleries make their stands in the form of small, but quite high-grade expositions. Although much of the serious antique dealers regard the salon as a presentational action, it still remains not an exhibition, but a fair, fraught with pleasant finds and interesting acquisitions. True, buyers often want what only a few sellers offer. So, already five years, as there was an unprecedented high demand for the monumental first-class masterpieces of the national school, and only a few antique dealers sell them.

S: What do you think, what kind of antiques (furniture, porcelain, painting, etc.) is more popular now?

- The general public is still interested in painting - in the form of works in oil by artists of the first and second row. From the old authorities of the national school, the palm goes to the masters of Russian-Jewish emigration, to social realism and - the last hit - to the French painters of the first half of the twentieth century. In the easel arts, we still prefer large canvases, just as in the field of decorative art - interior items. Russian porcelain enjoys steady popularity. Slightly less in demand is bronze. Approximately the same situation with the furniture. We still underestimate archeology and the East, while in the West, along with the old printed graphics, they are undeniable sales leaders. I would advise novice collectors to take a closer look at them.