LONDON.- A 1918 masterpiece showing a praying ascetic in a magnificent Karelian wilderness is the highlight of a fabulous collection of paintings offered in the Bonhams Russian Sale on November 26th.

The modern Russian master Nikolai Roerich - whose work set a world record price for a Russian painting sold in a Russian art sale at Bonhams in June 2013 - will again lead the Russian sale this season, with eleven of his paintings consigned from private American collections set to go under the hammer.

Works dating from 1910 to 1929 include stage sets, landscapes of Finnish lakes, the canyons of Arizona, snow-covered peaks in the Swiss Alps, mountain ranges of Mongolia and Tibet and monumental symbolic scenes - reflecting the widely travelled life and artistic diversity of this artist, intellectual, philosopher, explorer and writer who was born in Russia, reached prominence and recognition in America, and spent his later years in India.

A highlight of the group is 'The Praying Stylite (Ecstasy)', an unusually large work of the artist at that early period. It was executed in 1918 in Finland, where the artist found refuge from the social upheaval of the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Utilizing a distinctive palette of blues and earth tones, this painting is the central work of Roerich's Karelian period (1916-1918) and one of the greatest masterpieces of his entire artistic legacy. The artist was living an isolated life in Karelia, finding in solitude and the magnificent natural surroundings an entirely new direction for his creative search. This formative period also happened to coincide with World War I, two Russian revolutions and subsequent civil war. Destruction and social chaos was unleashed on Roerich's country and had a profound effect on the highly spiritual artist in these early years of his career.

The painting depicts a hermit in prayer against a formidable backdrop of jagged mountain peaks. The withered body, with legs grown into the rock to his ankles and beard long enough to touch his knees, seems to belong to a man who has stood there before God for a hundred years. As the man literally becomes a part of nature, it is a celebration of the spiritual heroism of the ascetic whose will overcomes worldly vanity.

Included in a number of artist's exhibitions in 1920s and 1930s, it disappeared from the public view after 1935 when it was no longer part of the permanent collection in the Roerich Museum in New York. Donated to the art collection of the Brandeis University Museum in Massachusetts in 1971, and thereafter transferred to a private American collection it was long unavailable to specialists and collectors. Recently rediscovered, this wonderful piece now rightfully takes its place among Roerich’s most important works.

Some of the other paintings by Roerich also offered in the sale include ‘The Offerings’, dated 1910 and estimated at £400,000-600,000; 'The Gates of Tmutarakan', executed in 1919 and estimated at £200,000-300,000; and ‘Tulola’, 1918, with an estimate of £250,000-350,000.

Another artist who travelled between four continents, keeping pictorial records of his fascinating expeditions, was Aleksandr Yakovlev (1887-1938), represented in the sale by two large canvases.

Estimated at £500,000-700,000, ‘Loge de Théâtre à Pekin’ is one of only a few large-scale paintings created in 1918 during a two-year long journey across China that Yakovlev embarked on as part of his wanderings in the Far East. Of his many adventurous voyages to the Far East, Africa, the Middle East and the United States, this trip proved to be the most influential for the twenty-one year old artist. It laid the foundation for his artistic legacy and inspired the creation of some of the most important works in his oeuvre.

Captivated by the rich culture and art of China, Yakovlev became enamored with the colorful spectacle of classical Chinese theatre, with its intricate rituals and dramatic performances. He thought of it as a window into the ancient traditions of the country, one that allowed him to understand simultaneously its heritage and modernity.

This monumental work, painted in rich tones of cinnabar red, olive green and golden brown, depicts a group of Chinese men seated in a theatre box. They are deeply absorbed in watching a performance on stage. An amusing array of their facial expressions conveys a variety of emotions and expressions. In a surprising alternative to a traditional artist signature, the banner draped across the balustrade reads, “Yakovlev. Painted by a Russian. Beijing, China. 1918.” In 1920, the work was included in the exhibition of Yakovlev's works organized at Galerie Barbazanges in Paris and around 1928 was acquired by Baron Lambert of Belgium.

The second Yakovlev painting, entitled 'The Winepress' and dated 1937, was inspired by the artist's frequent visits to the island of Capri. An example of the artist's later style, it features loose brushstrokes, dynamically modelled figures and a subdued colour palette.

Highlights from other artists include ‘Arrival of the Columbus Flotilla to the American Coast’ dated 1892 by celebrated Russian seascape artist Ivan Aivazovsky, estimated at £700,000-900,000. Invited to represent Russian fine art at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the seventy year old Aivazovsky embraced the opportunity to showcase twenty of his finest paintings. The scenic seascape is one of five paintings in a series of monumental paintings on the life of Christopher Columbus that Aivazovsky began as early as 1888. The offered work is among the most beautiful of the paintings in the series, depicting the final and most significant stage of Columbus' challenging journey to the New World: the moment at which the flotilla finally arrived on the shore of America.

Avant-garde painter David Shterenberg’s ‘Still Life with Fruit’, painted in the late1920s and estimated at £400,000-600,000, points to his life-long preoccupation with objecthood and his deep fascination in the 'life of objects'. With avant-garde practitioners seeking not merely to represent material objects on canvas, but actually to 'create' them through artistic means, this method was synthesized by Shterenberg with the approaches and techniques he developed while living in Paris from 1906-1917. The resulting paintings are remarkable not only for their exquisite formal qualities, but for their creation of a world where arrangements of everyday objects are imbued with a deep, almost mystical significance.

The Decorative Arts section of the sale presents a wide range of objects, including a pair of monumental porcelain vases, modelled by Augustus Spiess and made at the Imperial Porcelain Factory in St. Petersburg, estimated at £80,000-100,000; enamel and gold objects by Fabergé; and a large collection of brightly enamelled silver-gilt tea glass holders.