Drawings & Pastels

The British artist John Glover (1767- 1849) would doubtless have faded into relative obscurity had he not chosen, in 1831, to make a new life in colonial Australia. He ended up being dubbed ‘the father of Australian landscape painting’.

The Salon du Dessin, the Paris fair dedicated to works on paper, finally staged its 30th edition this month.

Among works by eastern European artists in demand recently, two pictures by modern Polish artists led the sale at a Buckinghamshire auction.

These pastel portraits depicting Georgiana and Henrietta Cavendish, the two legitimate daughters of Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, are soon to hang side by side for the first time in over a century.

Drawings fair will be staged in the usual venue but dealers can also take part online

An Illustration Art sale held in Dallas by Heritage (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) included a classic EH Shepard Winnie-the-Pooh work.

Although long-standing Paris fair for works on paper the Salon du Dessin has moved its dates to July 1-4, the other Paris fair, Drawing Now, devoted to Contemporary works on paper, usually staged at the same time, is taking place this month from June 10-13.

A charcoal drawing by Henri Matisse (1869-1954) that has not been seen since the major retrospective on the artist at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1948 is to be offered at auction in Aix-en-Provence.

With a major photography exhibition under way at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire dedicated to celebrity portraits by Cecil Beaton, two satellite shows open their doors celebrating the British photographer’s costume designs and theatrical pictures.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

This late 18th century watercolour of the famous cascades at Neptune’s Grotto in Tivoli forms part of a private collection of works on paper currently offered in Classic Ground: Travels in Italy, an online exhibition at Karen Taylor Fine Art.

Beaussant-Lefèvre is holding a series of sales on May 28 at the Drouot auction centre. Among them is an auction of Old Master and Modern paintings and antique furniture assembled by the collector James Bismuth (1931-2020) offered for sale by his descendants.

Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt was one of the stand-out lots in a 300-lot white-glove auction.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Depiction of one McNeill sister sets a record while portrait of her sibling also appears at another auction

An eight-lot sale in New York titled A Family Collection: Works on Paper, Van Gogh to Freud raised a premium-inclusive total of $25.3m (£18.2m).

Old Master sheets such as this lively example of satyr and Bacchus studies are believed to have served as a repertoire of motifs used in paintings or prints by the artist or their studio.

A private collection of pictures helped Parker Fine Art Auctions to its highest total since opening in Farnham last year.