Benjamin Perronet found buyers for all the Swedish drawings on his stand including Evening Sky by Nils Kreuger priced around €15,000 that went to an American museum at the Salon du Dessin.
The aisles of the Palais Brongniart in the Bourse district where this drawings fair is held were packed for the private view on March 21 and sales were made right from the outset.
Among the exhibitors with a good display of red dots from early on was Parisian dealer Benjamin Perronet. He sold a red chalk drawing of a bull in a stable by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) at the opening and his display of Swedish drawings all found buyers including a charcoal, chalk and coloured ink drawing, Evening Sky by Nils Kreuger (1858-1930), priced around €15,000 that went to an American museum.
Another Fragonard, Caprice: Fouilles de ruines Romaines, was one of four major sales made at the fair by WM Brady & Co from New York along with an academie (life drawing) of a standing female nude by Georges Seurat (1859-92).
The Didier Aaron Gallery sold almost half its stand including a drawing of a head representing astonishment by Carle Vernet (1736-1802) priced around €40,000 which went to a French collector.
This red chalk head and shoulders portrait of a woman wearing a large beret by Jean-Antoine Watteau priced around €150,000 was a sale for Galerie de Bayser at the Salon du Dessin.
Sales by the Galerie de Bayser from Paris included a red chalk head of a young woman wearing a large beret by Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) which had a provenance to the Mariette collection for around €150,000 while sales at Jean-Luc Baroni & Marty de Cambiare included a red chalk drawing of The Lamentation over the dead Christ by Baccio Bandinelli (1493-1560) which was purchased by a US museum.
New exhibitor Parisian Galerie Fabienne Fiacre sold several works on paper at the opening including a colourful watercolour of a parrot by Gustave Doré (1832-1883) and The Deification of Aeneas from 1749 by Jean Restout (1692-1768) priced around €150,000.
Rest on the Flight into Egypt, a pen ink and wash study of c.1815-20 by Michele Sangiorgi, which Cortona Fine Art from Milan sold to the Hamburg Kunsthalle at the Salon du Dessin.
Cortona Fine Art from Milan sold a pen, ink and wash drawing of The Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Michele Sangiorgi (1785-1822) to the Hamburg Kunsthalle while the British Museum purchased a 1930s pencil portrait of a woman’s head by Carry van Biema (1881-1942) from the Madrid gallery De la Mano.
Several exhibitors devoted an entire wall or area to one artist. Among them was new exhibitor Galerie Alexis Pentcheff from Marseille who displayed 25 works by Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940), more than 10 of which found buyers.
Galerie Berès from Paris sold this signed painting from 1972 by Hans Hartung, PM1972-15, in acrylic and pastel on baryta cardboard, which was priced around €100,000 at the Salon du Dessin.
