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Exceptional Figures Old Master Drawings from a Private Collection Paris, 24 March 2021

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Exceptional Figures
Old Master Drawings from a Private Collection Paris, 24 March 2021

Paris – Christie’s is pleased to announce its traditional Spring Old Master Drawings sale which will take place on 24 March. This sale will feature an exceptional collection of some thirty works on paper mainly assembled in the 1990s by a young European connoisseur couple living in New York at the time.

GIOVANNI-BATTISTA FRANCO, IL SEMOLEI (circa 1510-1561) Two studies of skeletons pen and brown ink, brown wash 42,7 x 27,9 cm Estimate: €200,000-300,000

Great lovers of contemporary art and close to the artists occupying the contemporary art scene, such as Andy Warhol or Jean-Michel Basquiat, the couple also had a strong interest in Italian drawings, ‘buying with their hearts’. By instinct, and following the advice of Charles Ryskamp (1963-1987), at the time director of the Morgan Library in New York, they attended auctions and the important galleries of Old Masters in search of a strong image without ever letting themselves be guided by fashion or convention.

The ensemble, mostly composed of Italian sheets of the sixteenth- and seventeenth centuries, and often presenting figure studies, still reflects today the eclecticism of a multi-disciplinary taste of great modernity.

Among the highlights of this sale, we can mention an astonishing Two studies of skeletons (ill. above) finely executed in pen and brown ink by Giovanni Battista Franco (circa 1510-1561), estimated at €200,000-300,000. The drawing comes from the former collection of the sculptor and historian of medieval and curator at the Louvre, Anatole Marquet de Vasselot (1836-1918).

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