Master drawings: in a patchy but stable market, specialists vary in their opinions about the allure of provenance and attribution, but all agree that quality is paramount

Apollo, July, 2004 by Susannah Woolmer

The Old Master drawings market encompasses works from around 400 years, from 1500 to the early 1900s. Within such a long period, there is an enormous variety, attracting both serious collectors and knowledgeable amateurs. Numerous specialist interests help create an extremely robust, it unpredictable, market. It is a distinctly unshowy area of collecting, which perhaps helps to explain why it is one of the very few fields to enjoy stability, unaffected by recent political and financial uncertainties that have depressed other areas of the art market.

Most of the action centres around the three main annual fairs: New York in January, the Salon du Dessin in Paris in March, and Master Drawings in London in July. Although there have been no dramatic shifts over the past year or two, focus has moved somewhat away from early Italian drawings towards eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German, French, Italian, Netherlandish and Dutch works. This is partly due to a dwindling supply of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century works on paper. The US, which dominates this area of the market (60 percent of Master drawings buyers are US museum representatives or trustees) has over the past fifty years been hoovering up fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian (and northern European) drawings with gusto. As a result there is now much less to be found on the open market. The demand is still there of course, and fine drawings from this period still surface. Jean Luc-Baroni has recently sold a beautiful red-chalk drawing of a young soldier after Michelangelo by Salviati (1510-63) to a private collector, and is currently offering an expressive sheet of pen and ink figure studies by Perino del Vaga (1501-47). This month at Master Drawings in London Katrin Bellinger at Colnaghi is exhibiting a large, confidently executed pen and ink study of David by Salviati, and a very lovely study of the Head of Christ by Benedetto Luti (1666-1724).

Eighteenth-century Italy is now attracting more attention; a wonderful, highly finished drawing of The Sermon on the Mount (around 1786-90) by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727-1804) was sold to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art by Crispian Riley-Smith in 2002 (Fig. 2). A particularly good example of Tiepolo's highly accomplished and delicate draughtmanship, this sheet formed part of a well known large Biblical series by the artist of around 314 drawings (now divided between the Louvre and various US museums). Its large scale and vertical format suggests that it was perhaps intended for a book illustration. A work of this quality and recognised affiliation with a known project commands a price in the range of 40-80,000 [pounds sterling]. However G.D. Tiepolo drawings of variable degrees of quality appear on the market with astonishing regularity (those by his father, Giambattista, are far rarer) and it is encouraging to know that very decent small drawings by the artist can be found for around 8-12,000 [pounds sterling], and occasionally less.

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Nineteenth and twentieth centuries on the rise

There is a growing interest in nineteenth- and twentieth-century works on paper. Traditionally, Old Master drawings and nineteenth-century works were exhibited as discrete specialist areas, but today both nineteenth- and twentieth-century drawings jostle for attention alongside the more established Old Masters. Thomas Le Claire in Hamburg sold a key, highly finished and very large Johann Friedrich Overbeck (1789-1869) pencil drawing, Germania and Italia, to the Staatliche Graphische Sammling, Munich, in 2001. One of the most interesting Master drawings in the holdings of Jean-Luc Baroni Ltd this year was a haunting pastel drawing Head of a Tahitian woman by Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) (Fig. 3). Sold to a private collector after it was exhibited at the Salon du Dessin in Paris in March, it sits comfortably within Baroni's 2004 summer catalogue beside a collection of ten drawings after Correggio by Federico Zuccaro (1543-1609) and a waif-like nude study by Edgar Degas (1834-1917). Katrin Bellinger (Colnaghi) has recently sold a double-sided pencil drawing by Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) to a private collector and is currently exhibiting a sensitive profile portrait of an elderly man by Adolph von Menzel (1815-1905), describing both as 'Master Drawings'. However, the auction houses still tend to maintain the distinction between Old Master and Modern works on paper in the salerooms.

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Rarity counts

Broadly, works that have fared exceptionally well over the past two years are the ones that offer the collector something unique. Major works by extremely important artists will always attract much attention. Michelangelo's Mourning woman was discovered during a routine valuation at Castle Howard, North Yorkshire in 2000, where it had languished, unrecognised, for 250 years. Likened to 'finding part of the Holy Grail' by James Miller, deputy chairman of Sotheby's, the drawing sold for just under 6m [pounds sterling] at Sotheby's, London in July 2001. The remarkable Horse and rider by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) fetched even more, 8.14million [pounds sterling], when it was sold at Christie's, London in 2001; last July a sheet of anatomical studies by Michelangelo fetched 296,800 [pounds sterling] at Sotheby's, London, and, as Susan Moore describes on pp. 24-25, a newly discovered red chalk drawing by Raphael (1483-1520), of about 1505, will go under the hammer on 8 July 2004 at the same auction house. It will be very interesting to see whether it exceeds its estimate of 50-70,000 [pounds sterling]. Outstanding examples by 'lesser' artists are also highly sought after. Two exceptionally beautiful pastel portraits in excellent condition by Jean-Etienne Liotard (1702-89) sold extremely well at Sotheby's in July 2002. Notable for their technical mastery and exquisite execution, Portait of an elegant woman wearing a black shawl (lot 211) sold for 776,650 [pounds sterling], and Portrait of a woman believed to be Lady Fawkener fetched 732,650 [pounds sterling], exceeding its top estimate of 600,000 [pounds sterling].