Drawing Week: monographic exhibitions in galleries

31/3/26 - Art market - Paris - As we noted this week at the Salon du Dessin (see article), monographic shows clearly seem to be in vogue, and so it comes as no real surprise to find several Parisian dealers adopting this approach in their “off” exhibitions, which also contribute to the strength of Drawing Week. Let us mention two of them here, both good enough to extend their run, beginning both chronologically and geographically on rue de Penthièvre at Christian Le Serbon’s gallery, where a small group of around fifteen sheets by Bertin is on view! He is not the best known of Ingres’s countless pupils (see article), although the portrait of his father — known as Bertin the Elder — is one of the painter’s finest works; yet this landscape artist of the “second neoclassical generation” remains widely admired for his drawings.

It is to these that Christian Le Serbon devotes his spring exhibition, while also recalling the training and artistic personality of this Bertin, so often confused with Jean-Victor Bertin (see the news item of 19/12/16) even though they were not related. One must stress the charm and quality of these sheets, which most often share the same arched format. After studying under Girodet, Bidauld, and Watelet, he completed his training with Ingres, but above all he was a traveller, exploring the shores of the Mediterranean, all the way to Egypt! Let us neglect for once his famous Italian views in favour of Greece (ill. 1) and this view of the Acropolis in Athens, of which the Custodia Foundation acquired a variation from Jacques Fischer in 2014.