Drawing

On December 8 Artcurial will hold a sale titled Balthus à Chassy devoted to around 150 drawings, watercolours and paintings by Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, known as Balthus.

The last known drawn self-portrait of Modern British artist Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) has been acquired by the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham.

A drawing by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) sold to a phone bidder for £32,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at Chiswick Auctions last week.

Wider spectrum of buyers means presenting catalogue entries in greater detail can pay off

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

A record price of £10,200 was paid last month for a pen and ink sketch by fell-walking legend Alfred Wainwright at 1818 Auctioneers of Milnthorpe, Cumbria.

Without the signature and dedication, this crayon and pencil drawing of 'Dorfhaus mit Baum und Randsteinen' (Village House with Tree and Rocks), coming up for sale at Neumeister in Munich on July 16, would be virtually impossible to attribute to its creator.

Turning heads at Bonhams Knightsbridge’s sale of Modern British art was a group of 22 pen and ink drawings by Cecil Beaton (1904-80) which formed part of the photographer’s 'The Book of Beauty' published in 1930.

One New York saleroom that has been notably active in the book market during the Covid restrictions is Doyle (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium). A recent sale included original illustrations for some well-known English children’s books.

Aguttes’ drawings auction was one of the only sales not to be postponed after the coronavirus alert.

Several surprises emerged in the tribal art sale held by Cologne auction house Lempertz (24% buyer’s premium) in a recent sale held in Brussels.

A hitherto unknown portrait of Nelson sold for three times the top estimate at the Charles Miller (24% buyer’s premium) auction on November 5.