John Varoli, writing for Russia Behind The Headlines, details the collection of Vyacheslav Kantor while trying to explain what drives Russian art buying and why it might be some time before Russians return to the market in force:

Vyacheslav Kantor, one of Russia’s richest businessmen with interests in fertilisers and real estate, has spent the past decade building up a collection of 20th-century artists, including works by modernists Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine, and Amedeo Modigliani, as well as post-war legends such as Mark Rothko and Ilya Kabakov. […]

Kantor’s collection includes Modigliani’s Seated Girl in a Black Dress (1918), bought at Sotheby’s in 2000 for $15.6m on a top estimate of $12m, and Soutine’s Le boeuf ecorche (1924), which sold in February 2006 at Christie’s for £7.8m ($13.8m at the time) on a top estimate of £4.8m. Until February 2007, it held the record as the most expensive Soutine painting sold at auction. Kantor also raised the bar for leading Russian post-war artist Ilya Kabakov when, in 2008, he bought the artist’s Beetle (1982) at Phillips de Pury & Company for £2.93m ($5.84m at the time), an auction record for Russian post-war art.

Russian Art Market: A Rebirth? (Russia Behind the Headlines–RBTH.ru)