NEW YORK, NY.- After a six-year hiatus, Swann Galleries reinstated their January auction of Old Master Drawings, which will be held on Tuesday, January 29. This sale offers drawings by artists who worked in Europe between the 15th and 19th centuries.

Divided by country of origin, the auction opens with 130 lots of Italian drawings. Featured among these are Bernardino Lanino, The Virgin and Child with St. John the Baptist and St. Elizabeth, brush and light brown ink, wash and body color, 16th century, which likely relates to Leonardo Da Vinci’s same-titled drawing (estimate: $10,000 to $15,000); Guido Reni, Head of a Woman Looking to the Left, black and red chalk, circa 1639-40, possibly related to the drawing of the head of Cleopatra in Sir Denis Mahon’s collection ($20,000 to $30,000); a preparatory study by Bernardino Gatti, called Il Sojaro, for the legs of Christ in Gatti’s Virgin Mourning the Dead Christ, red chalk, brush and white gouache, with a partial study of St. Sebastian on the verso ($10,000 to $15,000); and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Mars and Venus, brush and brownish tan ink and wash and pencil ($15,000 to $20,000).

Dutch highlights include Gaspar van Wittel, Veduta di Roma, gouache on vellum, 1683, considered one of the most complete gouache views of Rome by the artist, before he turned to more grand panoramas in oil, and the colorful image used on the cover of the auction catalogue ($30,000 to $50,000); Joris Hoefnagel (circle of), Still Life with Flowers, Insects and a Snail, watercolor, gouache and gold on vellum, 1589, with a Latin inscription, which translates to “Everything changes, nothing perishes;” and an oil on wood panel attributed to Jacob de Wit, The Triumph of Mordecai ($10,000 to $15,000 each).

From the French school are François Bouçher, Two Satyrs, black and white chalk, a study for figures in the Beauvais tapestry of Neptune Rescuing Ameymone ($12,000 to $18,000); François-André Vincent, Study of Neapolitan Peasants, pen and reddish brown ink and wash, double-sided ($2,500 to $3,500); and Eugène Delacroix, Two Studies of a Skull, pencil ($5,000 to $8,000).

Among the German highlights is a double-sided sheet of studies with a man eating, a rampant lion, coat-of-arms and other figures attributed to Jost Amman, pen and brown ink and wash, once in the collection of Vincent van Gogh, the nephew of the famous artist ($3,000 to $5,000); a pair of pencil drawings by Erling Carl Wilhelm Eckersberg, one of Mercury, the other a Shepherd Boy, drawn after marble sculptures by Bertel Thorvaldsen ($3,000 to $5,000 each); and two scenes from the 1870 Battle of Mars-La-Tour, one of the key battles in the Franco-Prussian War, by Louis Braun, both black chalk with white heightening on green paper ($1,500 to $2,500).

Rounding out the auction are select English works, such as Thomas Rowlandson, The Pea Cart, watercolor, 1780s, a study for the color aquatint of the same title ($3,000 to $5,000); A Wreck Near Pembroke Castle, pen and brown ink and wash attributed to Joseph M.W. Turner ($5,000 to $8,000); and Thomas Bush Hardy, Shipping in Rough Seas, watercolor and gouache, 1896 ($2,000 to $3,000).
The auction will begin at 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 29.

The works of art will be on public exhibition at Swann Galleries on Thursday, January 24 and Friday, January 20, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, January 26, from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.; Monday, January 28, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Tuesday, January 29, from 10 a.m. to noon.