Drawings & Pastels

A look at highlights from dealers and summer auctions in the UK.

Summer highlights from auctions and dealers.

“It is quite pathetic to see the Prince and Freda. His love is so obvious and undisguisable.”

One of only a small number of drawings by Michelangelo still remaining in private hands sold for €20m (£16.9m) at Christie’s Paris last week.

Ader is holding a sale of Old Master drawings on May 20 at Drouot in Paris.

Paris opens its doors to the world of drawings later this month with three dedicated fairs plus a selection of auctions featuring works on paper and a raft of drawing-related events in the city’s museums – all under the umbrella of the 'Semaine du Dessin' (or Drawing Week).

In February 2020 Lancashire saleroom Gerrards (20% buyer’s premium) sold a watercolour by Trinidad’s first internationally known artist, Michel-Jean Cazabon (1813-88), for £24,000 (see News, ATG No 2430).

This street scene by Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761-1845) will feature in the sale of Old Master and Modern drawings from 1500-1900 to be held by Millon on May 19 at Drouot in Paris.

Among the salerooms in Paris holding auctions of drawings, or sales with a drawing section, around the time of the Salon du Dessin is Christie’s.

The expansion in prices for David Hockney (b.1937) has affected not just his large and famous works which now sell for multi-millions but also his smaller drawings and printed works that fall further down the price scale.

In his next exhibition London dealer Guy Peppiatt focuses on the drawings of John Downman (1750-1824) and George Romney (1734-1802), two contemporaneous British artists who at first glance seem very different.

Cyril Arthur Farey (1888-1954) was one of the most renowned British architectural draughtsmen of the 20th century.

Antonacci Lapiccirella Fine Art of Rome has sold a pencil drawing depicting Maria Luisa de Bourbon to The Hamburger Kunsthalle.

Group of 18 lots sets a new level of demand and prices as recent trends drive strong interest

Prints, drawings, paintings and decorative arts from the 20th century will be on offer at Briscadieu in Bordeaux on April 9.

More than 1000 Old Master drawings offered in around 500 lots over two days went under the hammer of Beaussant Lefèvre (27% buyer’s premium inc VAT) at Drouot on February 10-11 when the auction firm dispersed the collection of Jacques and Colette Ulmann.

An ink drawing titled 'Four Miners' is among the works featured at Thompson’s Galleries, Aldeburgh, in an exhibition on Josef Herman (1911-2000).

Buy low, sell high: one of the most basic rules of dealing. For young dealers breaking into the Old Masters market, however, it can be a challenge, writes Frances Allitt.

An intricately drawn self-portrait in pen and ink in which the artist likens himself to Albrecht Dürer is at the heart of a new show on Alberto Martini.