The 26th annual Salon du Dessin in Paris is 4 percent up with 13,000 visitors over six days

PARIS.- With a growth of more than 4 percent to 13,000 visitors in 6 days, the 26th Salon du Dessin proved to be a great success. The Salon welcomed more visitors than ever during the preview. As a yearly meeting point for many international collectors and amateurs, the Salon has once again established that Paris is the place to be for drawings. More and more people are interested in the medium that was long considered inferior. Over the last 10 years sales figures have multiplied six times to over 3 billion Euros and according to Challenges Magazine, one in five works of art sold at auctions is a drawing (23th of March 2017)

Jean-Luc Baroni sold two drawings by Giovani Battista Piranesi, two drawings by Pillement, one by Ribera, a small drawing of a young man wearing a grotesque mask by Parmigianino and a charcoal drawing of a nude young man by Degas.

Emmanuel Marty de Cambiare immediately sold an important drawing by Cavaliere d’Arpino for several thousand Euros. Munich and London based Martin Grässle and Florian Härb sold over ten drawings on the first day of the fair. Arnoldi Livie, another Munich dealer, sold a Federico Barocci drawing to an American collector for approximately 70,000€. Also purchased by an American collector was a drawing by Greuze for approximately 75,000€, from the New York based gallery Brady and Co.

During the preview, Talabardon & Gautier sold a drawing depicting Mademoiselle Baronet and her mother by Jean- Marc Nattier, a drawing by Jacques-André Portail and an oeuvre by Pierre Brebiette, both representing sales figures above 100,000€. Institutes and private collectors were equally represented.

Gallery Art Cuellar Nathan sold drawings to young, collectors starting out: new clients for a well established gallery in Switzerland for over five generations! Joseph in Prison (1653), a drawing by Nicolas Maes, one of Rembrandts pupils’, was sold to a Dutch collector and a work by George Sand, A Stream Through Mountains, was acquired by a museum in Weimar.

Nathalie Motte-Masselink sold a 17th century Head of a woman by Van der Mijn for 5,000€ to Jane Turner, curator of the Rijksmuseum, who recognized it to be the preparatory drawing for a painting in the collection of the museum.

Most dealers in Old Master drawings also showed 20th century artists. Jill Newhouse, specialising in drawings for over 30 years, sold a Giacometti drawing Molloy, C.1951, for 75,000€,

Participating for the first time, Michel Descours immediately sold the preparatory drawing by Balthus for his famous painting The Chamber (1952/53). He also sold drawings by Carpeaux, de Boissieu and Flandrin and a portrait by Guillon- Lethière to a German Museum.

Galerie de Bayser sold more than 20 drawings - from Battista Franco to Sam Szafran - during the 26th edition of the fair.

Martin Moeller sold a large drawing of Franz Liszt composing by Hubert von Herkomer. He also sold 3 drawings by Franz Skarbina to collectors who discovered the artist on the fair thanks to the effort of the gallerist, who reunited a collection of ten drawings and published a catalogue.

Mathieu Neouze sold 11 drawings during the first day of the fair. One of them Mary Jane, A Toulousaine (1904) sold for between 40 and 50,000€ and a drawing by Carlos Schwabe of Maria Schwabe, daughter of the artist age 7 (1907) for between 15 and 20,000€. Vincent Lecuyer, who loves large-format work, sold a remarkable portrait by Lucien Jonas (1908). (See illustration below)

Galerie de la Présidence, specialized in modern art, showed a beautiful collection of drawings by Signac. His Harbour of La Rochelle (1924) sold for 80,000€. The gallery also sold a gouache by Maria-Helena Vieira da Silva for over 50,000€.

Also in the modern art section, Brame & Lorenceau parted with their fabulous gouache by Sonia Delaunay, which she created for a large screen exhibited at the Tuileries in 1938-1939. Antoine Laurentin sold a magnificent scene of a boat race in Fécamps from 1948 by Raoul Dufy, Maria, 1926, a portrait of a lady by Francis Picabia and a small drawing by Picasso.

Helène Bailly sold Nice Carnaval: the arrival of the post carriage by Toulouse Lautrec with an asking price between 200 and 250,000€ and a work by Picasso The Sleeping Guard, with a price tag between 100 and 150,000€. Galerie Karsten Greve sold a drawing by Louise Bourgeois, one by Osvaldo Licini and a drawing by Henri Michaux. Agnès Aittouares (galerie AB) sold a work by Marquet and a drawing by Sol Lewitt. London-based gallery Aktis, specialized in lyrical abstraction and post-war art, sold drawings by Dubuffet, Zao Wou-Ki and Le Corbusier. Galerie Zlotowski sold 8 drawings by Valmier, Ozenfant, Le Corbusier, Alechinsky and Dubuffet among others.

The thematic exhibition of Girodet’s preparatory drawings at his famous Scène de Déluge (1806 Salon, Paris, Musée du Louvre) made it possible to raise public awareness of the magnitude of the catastrophe that hit the Girodet Museum in Montargis during last May’s floods, submerging more than 1,200 drawings for three days.

Widely covered by the press, this spotlighting recalled the episode and was an opportunity to raise some of the necessary funds by launching a crowdfunding campaign.

Three artists were in the running for the 10th edition of the Drawing Prize awarded by the Daniel and Florence Guerlain Foundation for Contemporary Art : Charles Avery – Ciprian Muresan – Didier Trénet.

Gathered together on the 23rd of March at the Salon du dessin, the Jury*awarded the 2017 Prize to Ciprian Muresan. Born in 1977 in Dej (Romania), he lives and works in Cluj-Napoca (Romania) and is represented by the galleries Plan B Cluj, Berlin; David Nolan, New York; Eric Hussenot, Paris.