Alexey Hanzen is a grandson and to some extent a student of Ivan Aivazovsky. As a child, he visited him in his workshop in Feodosia. But he received a professional art education in France and Germany. Hanzen became a successful artist during his lifetime. His paintings were awarded at European salons.

There will be a shock auction of Russian classics — works of important artists of the late 19th — early 20th centuries. There will be many amazing intersections in the fates of the authors. Almost all of the artists listed below were born in the Russian Empire. Almost all were artists of the Naval Department. Almost all emigrated in the 1920s. And, as befits a Russian artist at the turn of the century, everyone died in a foreign land — in France, in Montenegro, in Turkestan.