Richard Zommer

Richard Zommer, recorded in sources as Richard Karlovich Zommer or Richard Karl Karlovich Zommer, and occasionally as Richard Karl Sommer, was born in Munich in 1866. He studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg from 1884 to 1893 as a non-credit student, receiving a small silver medal in 1886 and silver medals in 1890 and 1891, and graduated in 1893 with the rank of class artist of the 3rd degree.

He went on to travel and work extensively in Central Asia, including Tashkent, Bukhara, and Samarkand, and in Transcaucasia around Tiflis (Tbilisi), producing landscapes, portraits, and genre scenes of daily and religious life. He was one of the founders of the Tiflis Society of Fine Arts. From 1894 he exhibited with the St. Petersburg Society of Artists, the Society of Russian Watercolorists, and the Autumn Exhibitions held in the halls of the Imperial Academy of Arts, and held a solo exhibition in Tashkent in 1915.

Zommer died in 1939. Multiple reference sources agree on this year, but none document an exact date or a specific place of death beyond the general attribution of Russia.

Formal critical literature on Zommer is sparse. Dealers and reference sources describe him as one of the earlier Russian painters to absorb impressionist handling of light while working in an essentially realist, orientalist mode, and note the ethnographic value of his depictions of Central Asian and Caucasus life. His role as a founder of the Tiflis Society of Fine Arts points to a regional significance in the Georgian art scene that is better documented than his broader critical reputation.

The best-documented auction result for Richard Zommer, with a confirmed price, venue, and estimate, is USD 80,000 for the painting Stopping for Prayers at South Bay Auctions in the United States, roughly ten times its USD 5,000 to 8,000 estimate; the exact sale date could not be confirmed in the sources reviewed. Other reported results are higher in nominal terms but less fully documented: a work titled Gate of Kashmir reportedly brought GBP 95,650 including premium at Bonhams London in October 2023, with the exact day not confirmed, and a work titled Crimean night, view of Oreanda and Aiu-Dagh is reported at SEK 4,000,000, with the auction house and date undocumented in available sources. Because the house, exact date, or full sale terms cannot be verified for these higher figures, they are disclosed here but not treated as a confirmed record. A further significant result, A Turkmen Family in Repose, brought EUR 31,720 including premium at the German house Lempertz, with the exact sale date not documented. Smaller lots have sold in the GBP 3,000 to 6,000 range at houses such as Olympia Auctions and Roseberys London.

Zommer's market is small, historic, and unmanaged: there is no catalogue raisonne, no estate, and no gallery representation, so authentication rests on connoisseurship, signature comparison, and subject matter consistent with his documented travels rather than any certifying body. Public auction results are limited in number, dispersed across regional and specialist houses rather than concentrated at the top tier, and reported in several different currencies without full corroborating detail, so a single result, such as the USD 80,000 Stopping for Prayers sale, should not be read as establishing a stable price level or a confirmed all-time record. Museum holdings in Russia, Uzbekistan, and the Caucasus offer useful comparanda for quality and subject, and buyers should treat the exact date and place of the artist's 1939 death, which remain undocumented in the public record, as an open question rather than an assumption.