The Salon du dessin returns in spring

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1. Albertus Jonas Brandt (1788-1821)
Malva, c. 1816
Watercolour over pencil lines - 35.2 x 28.1 cm
Paris, Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt
Photo: Onno van Seggelen Fine Arts
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It was not without emotion that we rediscovered the most beautiful sheet (ill. 1) from the previous edition of the Salon du Dessin: offered in May 2022 by the Dutch dealer Onno van Seggelen, it was immediately acquired by the late Ger Luijten, director of the Fondation Custodia who suddenly passed away last December (see news item of 20/12/22). The fair very elegantly wished to join in the many tributes paid to this warm personality, a regular visitor to the Salon du Dessin, where he took part in the vetting every year. Alongside Brandt’s large sheet, a fine selection of works testifies to his subtle taste: we can admire Antoine Berjon’s delicate Huppe fasciée, which stands not far from Josephus Augustus Knip’s pretty gouache representing Buffon’s house in the Jardin des Plantes. While we must, of course, regret the disappearance of the stand that the fair devoted here to a few anonymous drawings just a few years ago, an appreciable singularity of the Salon du Dessin, we can only rejoice at this invitation to one of the most dynamic European institutions in the field of graphic arts.

2. Alessandro Allori, known as Il Bronzino (1535-1607)
Two Souls Between an Angel and a Demon, c. 1560
Black chalk - 26 x 9.5 cm
Paris, Galerie Terrades
Photo : Galerie Terrades
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Museums are of course among the privileged clients of the fair, which continues to attract curators from all over the world, who flocked to the opening alongside collectors eager for stunning discoveries. The first sheet we noticed this year is naturally among them: offered on the stand of the Galerie Terrades, this drawing (ill. 2) by Alessandro Allori was not long in finding a buyer. A pupil and adopted son of Bronzino, the Florentine artist avidly studied Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, which gave rise to this vertical composition whose movement is accentuated by the draughtsman’s hand. As the gallery’s notice states, this is not a strict copy, since Allori is reinterpreting a motif from the Last Judgement, in which an angel tries to pull two souls towards paradise that a demon is trying to make fall.


3. Raymond Lafage (1656-1684)
The Shadow of Samuel Appearing to Saul at the Pythoness of Endor
Pen and brown ink, grey wash - 35 x 34 cm
Paris, Jean-Luc Baroni & Marty de Cambiaire
Photo: Jean-Luc Baroni & Marty de Cambiaire
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From the first book of Samuel, The Shadow of Samuel appearing to Saul at the Pythoness of Endor remains a biblical subject, but this Old Testament episode is probably known only to scholars. Raymond Lafage produced an extraordinary sheet, which was quickly sold on the stand of Jean-Luc Baroni & Marty de Cambiaire (ill. 3): it appeared at the sale after the death of Vivant Denon, had previously belonged to the painter Julien de Parme and undoubtedly came from the famous Crozat collection, a great lover of Raymond Lafage, of which he had more than three hundred drawings! As the gallery’s notice assumes, the artist had certainly had the opportunity to admire Salvator Rosa’s painting representing the same subject: acquired by Louis XIV, it is now kept in the Louvre Museum.


4. Jacob de Wit (1695-1754)
Jupiter and Callisto, 1733
Black chalk, pen and brown ink, grey wash, watercolour and white highlights - 44.5 x 30.8 cm
Rotterdam, Onno van Seggelen Fine Arts
Photo: Onno van Seggelen Fine Arts
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5. Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (1734-1781) after Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
Two Cossacks
Black stone, red chalk, brown wash and white highlights - 34.1 x 23.4 cm
Paris, Galerie Eric Coatalem
Photo: Galerie Eric Coatalem
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Precisely signed and dated 1733, a beautiful drawing by Jacob de Wit (ill. 4) sits at the centre of the stand of the Dutch dealer Onno van Seggelen, who in a few years has become a pillar of the fair. Derived from an earlier commission, this attractive sheet has a pendant kept since 2013 at the Art Institute of Chicago, where Mnemosyne replaces Callisto. Probably conceived for the market, these two drawings are linked to two paintings on the same subjects, made in 1727 and bought in 1955 by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Two Cossacks (ill. 5) seems to be looking at the two nymphs by Jacob de Wit: presented on Eric Coatalem’s stand, where they were almost immediately sold, these come from a large painting by Rubens, now on view in Boston, but which was in Paris in the 18th century: acquired by Pierre Crozat for the Regent in 1721, it was part of the famous collection of the Dukes of Orleans until its sale in London in 1793.


6. Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806)
An ox in a stable
Sanguine - 35.3 x 49 cm
Paris, Benjamin Peronnet Fine Art
Photo: Suzanne Nagy
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While the great names of the Age of Enlightenment were more discreet than usual, much to the dismay of lovers of Watteau, Boucher or Greuze, it was impossible not to notice the spectacular Ox in a Stable by Fragonard, exhibited by the Parisian dealer Benjamin Peronnet. Peacefully dominating his stand, where one can also admire the seductive Swedish drawings of which he is a specialist, this imposing bovine drawn in sanguine (ill. 6) comes from the family of the sculptor Pajou, who may have acquired it directly from the artist. One is irresistibly reminded of the marvellous Bull with a dog in the Albertina, but also of some of Fragonard’s paintings: the White Bull in the Stable in the Louvre, the Stable from the Veil-Picard collection, which was dated to the national collections in 2003 and then long-terme loaned in the Musée de Valence (see the news item of 1/10/04), as well as the amusing Intérieur d’étable, which recently reappeared at a sale at Artcurial (see the news item of 8/11/22).

7. Carle Vernet (1758-1836)
Amazement, 1782
Black chalk and pastel on beige paper - 47.7 x 35.2 cm
Paris, Didier Aaron Gallery
Photo : Galerie Didier Aaron
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Pretty poor in very strong sheets, this 2023 edition of the Salon du Dessin thus allowed the splendid expression head signed by Carle Vernet (ill. 7) to rise to the rank of the fair’s most striking drawings. It was, however, a purely academic exercise, a testimony to the competitions organised until they were abolished in 1968. The young students drew from the repertoire provided by Charles Le Brun to illustrate the expression of passions, according to precise procedures. Less well known today than his father Joseph or his son Horace, Carle Vernet remains rather famous for his horsemen, but this very beautiful drawing is a fine tribute to the precocious talent of this pupil of Lépicié, in whose studio he entered after having first studied with his father. Expressing astonishment, this superb expressive head also constitutes one of the interesting testimonies of these competitions preserved outside the plethoric collections of the École des Beaux-Arts, the natural heir of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture.


8. Jean-François Millet (1814-1875)
Agar
Charcoal on blue paper, laid down in black stone - 22 x 43.5 cm
Paris, Galerie Nathalie Motte Masselink
Photo: Galerie Nathalie Motte Masselink
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Although the 19th and 20th centuries took the lion’s share of the stands, we do not feel that we should complain about this or regret some fantasised golden age when old master drawings were less rare: on the contrary, at several dealers who usually specialise in the preceding centuries, we ourselves retained more recent but undoubtedly more singular sheets. If it was impossible not to mention Carle Vernet’s head of expression, the other star of the Galerie Didier Aaron’s stand was a splendid charcoal by a little-known Danish artist, done in 1924! Although nothing is known about Helene Andersen, her fascinating study of a plaster mask seduced most of the fair’s visitors. At Nathalie Motte’s, it was another charcoal drawing that attracted all eyes, even if it pleased a couple of collectors at the opening: this powerful sheet by Jean-Baptiste Millet (ill. 8) prepares one of his most interesting paintings, Agar and Ishmael. Commissioned by the French government in 1848, this composition, now in The Hague, was one of the highlights of his Lille retrospective (see article).


9. Alexander Hesse (1806-1879)
Oriental Head
Pastel - 62 x 48.5 cm
Paris, Galerie De Bayser
Photo: Galerie De Bayser
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10. Eugène-Emmanuel Amaury-Duval (1808-1885)
Profile of a Young Girl, 1870
Black chalk and white chalk highlights - 48.4 x 39.2 cm
Paris, Galerie Michel Descours
Photo: Galerie Michel Descours
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Forgoing the irresistible portrait of the Duc de Chaulnes by Jean-Marc Nattier, which was also sold at the opening, we selected what we thought was the finest pastel at the fair from the Galerie De Bayser stand: the superb study (ill. 9) by Alexandre Hesse preparing one of the figures for his first secular decoration, the ceiling of the Palais de la Bourse in Lyon, commissioned in 1868 and completed in 1870. At Michel Descours’, the most eminent Lyonnais of the Salon du Dessin, we ruthlessly rejected his many compatriots in favour of a seductive female portrait (ill. 10) by Amaury-Duval, an artist who is naturally dear to La Tribune de l’Art, even if the little jewels of Hans Thoma and Oskar Kokoschka were also very much in the spotlight.


11. Henri Regnault (1843-1871)
Judith and Holofernes, 1869
Black chalk and white chalk highlights - 45 x 66 cm
Paris, Galerie Fabienne Fiacre
Photo: Galerie Fabienne Fiacre
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For her first participation in the fair, Fabienne Fiacre offered a spectacular drawing by Jean Restout preparing The Deification of Aeneas preserved in Strasbourg, which was moreover the cover of her catalogue where we also discover a charming little Cochin that belonged to Pierre de Nolhac, but we reproduce instead her large drawing by Henri Regnault (ill. 11) linked to the painting now preserved in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Marseille. Made at the Villa Medici, while the young artist was a resident at the Académie de France in Rome, this one differs from the other known studies for the final composition, as the gallery’s notice states.


12. Giuseppe Signorini (1857-1932)
A Man in Japanese Costume, c. 1890
Watercolour over traces of graphite - 37 x 28.6 cm
New York, W. M. Brady & Co
Photo: W. M. Brady & Co
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13. Léon Spilliaert (1881-1946)
Sirene (Bather), 1910
Indian ink, brush, coloured pencil - 64.7 x 49.1 cm
Brussels, Lancz Gallery
Photo: Lancz Gallery
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At Mark Brady’s beautiful stand, we also overlooked the majestic 18th century sheets that line the walls in favour of an atypical drawing by a little-known artist, Giuseppe Signorini: this magnificent watercolour (ill. 12) showing a man wearing a Japanese kimono was noticed by many visitors to the fair, who were sensitive to the originality of the layout where the medium, mastered to perfection, wonderfully translates the silkiness of the clothing. This undulating aspect can be found in the seductive Sirene by Léon Spilliaert (ill. 13) offered in the centre of Patrick Lancz’s stand, where this evanescent figure stands next to a minor by Constantin Meunier and a bewitching pastel undergrowth by William Degouve de Nuncques.

14. Robert Poughéon (1886-1965)
Fragment, 1931
Pencil and coloured pencil on paper - 54 x 44.5 cm
Paris, Galerie Ambroise Duchemin
Photo: Galerie Ambroise Duchemin
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Let us continue our news item chronological walk with another artist dear to La Tribune de l’Art, the impeccable Robert Poughéon, well known to amateurs and a wider public since the excellent exhibition devoted to him by La Piscine de Roubaix a few years ago (see article). Signed and dated 1931, one of his most beautiful sheets (ill. 14) dominates the perfect selection by the young Parisian dealer Ambroise Duchemin, all the more appreciable in that it is accompanied by a catalogue in which we could also have mentioned the powerful drawing by George Minne, which we will no doubt have the opportunity to discuss again soon. Although most of the galleries present willingly provide solid notes for their best works, it must be said that catalogues are becoming rarer over the years, perhaps due to the paper crisis, which fortunately does not affect the most endearing of fairs. Florian Härb & Liberté Nuti also accompanied their elegant selection with a precious catalogue with a superb Kandinsky on the cover, unfortunately a little too late to be reproduced here.


15. Charles de La Fosse (1636-1716)
Study of a Woman
Sanguine and white chalk - 17.8 x 23.8 cm
Paris, Galerie Antoine Tarantino
Photo: Antoine Tarantino Gallery
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Let’s also greet some newcomers like the Kevorkian Gallery, whose superb Mughal or Persian miniatures are also out of focus for La Tribune de l’Art. Impossible to mention all the participants in a single article, but the innumerable Pinelli of the Galleria W. Apolloni bring an appreciable neoclassical note, joined by the sheets of Pelagio Palagi or Vincenzo Camuccini proposed by the Maurizio Nobile Gallery. Bottegantica was able to compose an entire wall of Boldini, a real house speciality, while Alexis Pentcheff combined great Paul Jouve and small Edouard Vuillard. Antoine Tarantino offers, as usual, an ideal selection of Italian drawings, including a formidable Repas chez Simon by Luca Giordano which forces us to eat our hat, a few days after having dared to write here that he was not the great draughtsman (see the news item of 7/3/23) that the Petit Palais exhibition presented to us a few years ago (see the article). As a final flourish, let us instead choose the smallest but also the prettiest of all the Charles de La Fosse paintings presented this year, a Study of a Woman (ill. 15) acquired with an attribution to Maratti, but returned to the French artist with the help of Clémentine Gustin-Gomez, who dates it to the 1680s.

16. Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891)
Bourguignotte with a Warrior, Love and Glory, 1843
Indian ink, black pencil and lead white highlights on wove paper - 27 x 21.8 cm
Paris, Musée de l’Armée
Photo: Musée de l’Armée
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The Salon du Dessin has very wisely chosen to invite this year the Musée de l’Armée, whose graphic arts cabinet no longer holds any secrets for the enthusiasts of the Bella Maniera association, which had recently organised a memorable visit there led by Sylvie Le Ray-Burimi and Laëtitia Desserrières. Also present for the first time at the fair, where we can only hope that its counter - run by volunteer members - will be perpetuated, this club of lovers of old master drawings presented its activities: organisation of fascinating visits, publication of scientific articles and above all the grant Bella Maniera intended to support a young researcher wishing to publish a collection of old master drawings kept in a public institution. Thanks to the work of its teams, the Musée de l’Armée was able to open in March 2018 a cabinet conserving 80,000 photographs, 25,000 prints and 10,000 drawings, among which we cannot resist the pleasure of selecting Ernest Meissonier’s Bourguignotte (ill. 16), which was brought closer to the time of the Salon du Dessin to the mid-16th century Italian object it faithfully represents. Fortunately, it remains in its display case and did not need to be used, even when the demonstrations surrounding the Palais Brongniart last night led the fair to close its main entrance and secure its access.


17. Hippolyte Bellangé (1800-1866)
The Vivandière of Wagram, 1862
Watercolour on wove paper - 22 x 30.5 cm
Paris, Musée de l’Armée
Photo: Musée de l’Armée
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Still too little known to specialists, the Musée de l’Armée’s graphic arts cabinet therefore benefits here from a welcome spotlight, especially as the presentation is accompanied by a small publication - also available and downloadable from the Salon du dessin website - summarising the full wealth of its collections, which are regularly enriched. Readers of La Tribune de l’Art will certainly remember the magnetic pastel by Liotard, which was preempted a few years ago (see the news item of 12/12/19) and exhibited here for the occasion, not far from Mathurin Méheut’s Photograph (see the news item of 14/8/20). Among other moving testimonies to the horrors of war, we also discover The Vivandière of Wagram by Hippolyte Bellangé (ill. 17), acquired in 2021 from Christian Le Serbon and which we had not yet had the opportunity to discuss. Although the extraordinary Jean Delpech collection (1916-1988) is also outside our field of interest, it should be noted that it benefits from the Getty Paper Project, which has enabled the Musée de l’Armée to enhance the value of these drawings, which will soon benefit from a digital space in the form of an exhaustive catalogue, while a remarkable monograph has just been published by In Fine Editions d’Art. As you can see, the Salon du Dessin is always full of varied discoveries and absolutely deserves one or more visits.

All the practical information is available on the website of the Salon du dessin, which closes its doors on Monday evening.

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