PARIS.- With over 14,000 visitors, including 2,300 at the private view alone, hundreds of drawings sold, and nearly 500 museum curators from around the world in attendance, the 34th edition of the Salon du dessin confirms its outstanding international success. Institutions from across the United States and Europe were present in large numbers, making acquisitions throughout the fair. Curators in attendance included representatives from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Getty Museum (Los Angeles), the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), the Staatliche Museum (Karlsruhe), the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg), the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), the British Museum (London) and the Nationalmuseum (Stockholm), among others. French institutions were also widely represented, with curators from the Louvre, the Petit Palais, the Musée d’Orsay, the Centre Pompidou, the Château de Fontainebleau, Chantilly and Versailles in attendance. Numerous regional museums were likewise present, including those in Amiens, Dijon, Orléans, Rennes and Lille.

The MuMA Le Havre was the guest of honour for this edition. The Fondation Daniel et Florence Guerlain awarded its 19th Contemporary Drawing Prize to Dutch artist Renie Spoelstra.

Numerous sales were recorded from the opening preview. In the category of Old Master drawings, the gallery Didier Aaron & Cie quickly sold to an American collector a particularly fresh pastel by Jean Pillement (1728–1808), Wooded Landscape with Shepherds; to a French collector, a red chalk drawing by François Boucher, Study Sheet with Two Putti, a preparatory drawing for the large composition Aurora and Cephalus held at the Yamazaki Mazak Museum of Art in Nagoya; and an unpublished drawing by Léopold Boilly (1761–1845), depicting Blanche Charlote de Roncherolles, Countess of Ferragut, to a German museum. The Antwerp-based gallery Lowet de Wotrenge, participating in the Salon du dessin for the first time, sold around ten drawings, including three to French and international museums, notably the Portrait of Archbishop Philippus Rovenius by Cornelis Visscher (1628/9–1658). Galerie Terrades also quickly sold a very fine black chalk drawing by Charles Le Brun (1619–1690), La fidélité distinguant la Religion et la Justice royale, an allegory in honour of François Sublet de Noyers, circa 1640. Galerie de Bayser sold around twenty works, including two magnificent allegories by Grégoire Huret (1606–1670), acquired at the preview for €100,000 by an American collector on behalf of a museum. The gallery also quickly found a buyer for Autoportrait à l’antiquaire (1851) by Adolph von Menzel (1815–1905), a red chalk Head of a Bearded Man by Domenico Beccafumi (1486–1551), and Head of a Sleeping Young Woman in black chalk with white highlights on blue paper by Dominique Papety (1815– 1849). Galerie Michel Descours sold three works by Louis Cretey (1643–1713), while the remaining five were reserved, and also placed La décollation de saint Jean-Baptiste, a very fine drawing in black chalk, red chalk and watercolour by the Lyonnais artist Jean-Louis Appian (1862–1896).

Galerie Paul Prouté sold 35 drawings, including a study for a fresco depicting a hunter (1897) by Fernand Cormon (1845–1924), reserved by the Musée du Petit Palais, and a drawing by Merry-Joseph Blondel (1781–1853), Archer nu, circa 1820, reserved by the Musée de Fontainebleau. DELAMANO Old Masters sold a 19th-century Peruvian School watercolour on paper depicting Enlutadas (women in mourning) to the Hispanic Society. Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, which had assembled a group of eight drawings by Guercino (1591–1666), sold around ten works, including a pen and brown ink drawing by Guercino, Femme avec un vase de fleurs (Flora ?), priced at €100,000; a Florentine School Deux études d’une tête de cheval, in brush and brown wash heightened with white on blue paper, acquired by a French collector for €40,000; and Un satyre assis by Edme Bouchardon (1698–1762). A preparatory drawing by Guercino for a painting now in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, depicting a monk’s head in profile, attracted considerable attention at Benjamin Péronnet and, unsurprisingly, changed hands. Guercino was also featured at the stand of the young gallery founded by Yasmina Sabrier and Marianne Paunet, which presented a display at the intersection of book and image. The gallery placed in a private collection two highly sought-after sheets by Guercino (1591–1666), preparatory to two plates from the Libro dei disegni published in 1618

The gallery W.M. Brady & Co. sold very quickly an outstanding red chalk drawing by Pierre Brébiette (1698–1742), Les géants défiant les dieux de l’Olympe, intended as a preparatory work for one of the engravings in the Tableau des Vices et des Vertus. Galerie Eric Coatalem notably sold a fine red chalk drawing by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805), as well as an ink wash by Francesco Guardi (1712–1793) depicting Le Pont du Rialto. Fabienne Fiacre chose to devote an entire wall to “Ingresque friendships”, bringing together, around a drawing by Ingres, works by artists who gathered in Rome around the master, who was a central figure of the Villa Medici. She sold around fifteen drawings, including a work by Théodore Chassériau (1819–1856), Le Christ au jardin des oliviers (1840). A catalogue specially produced for the fair will preserve a record of this widely noted display. The German gallery Martin Moeller & Cie sold around ten drawings, including a watercolour by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976), Chèvres et veaux dans la prairie (1922), priced at €60,000.

Among the 17 international galleries participating in the fair, five were Italian. The gallery Pandora Old Masters placed the striking Portrait d’une femme bretonne in black charcoal by Francis Brooks Chadwick (1850–1943), as well as Les deux lapins, drawn in pen and Indian ink by Hirose Toho (1875–1930). The gallery Enrico Frascione quickly found buyers for four drawings, spanning both Old Master and contemporary works, at prices ranging from €20,000 to €50,000. The gallery Paolo Antonacci, which presented a fine display of views of Rome by Salomon Corrodi (1810–1892), sold more than five drawings, particularly to museums, at prices between €5,000 and €50,000. Galerie Bottegantica and Aleandri Arte Moderna, sharing a stand, sold around ten drawings.

More galleries than usual took the risk of presenting monographic exhibitions. Among them, the London-based James Butterwick unveiled a solo show that was widely noted by visitors and collectors, who discovered the work of the Ukrainian artist Dmitry Lebedev (1899–1922), who died prematurely in 1922 at the age of 23. Stéphane Danant (Galerie Demisch Danant), a first-time participant, presented a remarkable exhibition devoted to Eugène Isabey, which attracted the interest of the MET and the Getty from the opening, while several other works were quickly acquired by collectors. Galerie Françoise Livinec, which presented two monographic exhibitions devoted to women artists Yahne Le Toumelin (1923–2023) and Natalia Gontcharova (1881–1962), sold around fifteen works.

In the field of modern art, the gallery Dina Vierny sold a pencil drawing on paper by Pablo Picasso (1881– 1973), depicting a standing nude (1920), for around €100,000. Galerie Berès quickly placed a Cubist head by Henri Laurens (1885–1954), dating from 1918, with a collector they had not seen in 30 years, as well as a double-sided drawing by Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), depicting a woman and her dog, with a well-known collector. Galerie Traits Noirs could have sold L’ânier by Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985), a 1949 mixed-media work on paper, many times over, ultimately acquired by a Mexican collector. The gallery also found a buyer for an ink drawing by Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), Étude d’homme allongé, formerly in the Richard Garcia collection. Stern Pissarro Gallery sold a still life by Morandi dating from 1928, a drawing by Picasso depicting a dove (c. 1953), a drawing by Camille Pissarro, and a work by his second son, Georges Manzana Pissarro, representing a portrait of Paul Cézanne.

Galerie Laurentin sold a large and singular gouache from 1958 by Serge Poliakoff (1900–1969), which was prominently displayed at the centre of its stand. Galerie de la Présidence placed a very fine charcoal drawing by Suzanne Valadon, as well as works by Sonia Delaunay, to whom an entire wall was devoted. Galerie Alexis Pentcheff sold drawings by Paul Signac, Paul Jouve and Henri-Edmond Cross, as well as around thirty drawings by Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), priced between €1,000 and €4,000 each, from the Françoise Terrasse estate. Pierre Bonnard was also featured at Galerie AB, which also placed a delicate black chalk portrait of Berthe Schaëdlin seated in an interior, executed around 1892. Galerie Jean-François Cazeau, one of four galleries exhibiting for the first time at the Salon du dessin, sold at the preview a work by André Masson and an ink drawing by T’Ang Haywen. The gallery presented the largest drawing at the fair, an immense sheet by Bernard Réquichot (1929–1961), who took his own life in 1961 at the age of 31 after a career lasting just over six years. He was supported by the renowned gallerist Daniel Cordier and is well represented in the collections of the Centre Pompidou. The work, titled Les reptiles ensevelis (1957), in ink and gouache, was purchased by a French collector. Galerie La Forest Divonne, a newcomer to the fair, presenting contemporary artists such as Vincent Bioulès and Alexandre Hollan, expressed great satisfaction: “Exhibiting at the Salon du dessin positions artists at a museum level,” the gallery noted.