A series of dealer shows in the Drouot district prompted brisk business to coincide with the Salon du Dessin (March 20-25), where 25 international dealers enjoyed a packed, but very commercial vernissage where foreign accents – particularly American – rang out loud and clear.
Diane Nixon and Jeffrey Horvitz numbered among some high-profile collectors to have made the trip across the Atlantic, along with New York dealer WM Brady, who was the only American dealer exhibiting.
Chief organiser Hervé Aaron sold Pieter Coecke van Aelst’s Joshua Crossing the Jordan (1527) and went on to report his best-ever salon; Eric Coatelem sold over 15 works, including Tiepolo’s Trois Polichinelles à Cheval (c.1790) to an American buyer for a reported £150,000. London exhibitors included Agnew’s, Kate de Rothschild, Yvonne Tan Bunzel and Thomas Williams.
High-profile collectors boost spring sales
Paris in late March held various attractions for art lovers outside the saleroom. Europ’Art, a new contemporary art salon (March 14-17), attracted 200 artists from 18 countries (40 of them from ‘guest nation’ Israel). The International Paris Print Fair (March 22-25) assembled 30 exhibitors from France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK (Elizabeth Harvey-Lee, Flowers Graphics, Garton & Co, Sims Reed, and William Weston).
