Sheer drawing power

WHO could have predicted the astounding transformation of the Old Master drawings market? Not so long ago, this most arcane and recherch" of fields was still the preserve of scholars and that now all-but-extinct breed of gentleman-connoisseurs who spent their lives in contented dispute over the finer points of attribution (very few Renaissance or later artists were considerate enough to posterity to sign their preparatory drawings and sketches).

In market terms, this was a negligible backwater. Since drawings could be bought for relatively small sums - a mixed blessing for collectors - no one had any inclination to sell unless they had to. So what happened? What always happens: one or two big players suddenly enter the market, competition leads to a dizzying rise in prices and then somebody attempts to cash in and offers the kind of prizes that would make any pince-nez pop out.

The crucial big player in this case was the J Paul Getty Museum, the so-called Monster from Malibu, which, in the form of its determined curator Dr George Goldner, entered the market in 1981 with a budget bigger than that of any other institution in the world and gobbled up any great drawing that came its way. Unless, that is, one of the two or three exceedingly rich new US private collectors held out for that winning bid. Then, in 1984, as competition was hotting up, out of the blue and delivered on a silver salver came a group of outstanding drawings from the collection of the Dukes of Devonshire at

Chatsworth, and the market was never the same again.

The glamour of Chatsworth, the big names Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo - the phenomenal publicity, stellar estimates and the belief that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy from one of the world's largest and finest private collections (we now know better ; another tranche was sold off three years later) combined to draw the eyes of the world. The previous world record for a drawing -640,000 paid for a D.rer watercolour at the legendary von Hirsch sale in 1978

was broken 18 times at this Chatsworth sale. The jewel of the offering, a substantial black chalk head by Raphael, underbid by the Getty, soared to a phenomenal 3.5 million. It was sold, as it were, on a whim and a puff of baby powder, to Mrs Barbara Piasecka Johnson, a woman who had previously never bought an Old Master drawing. They were no longer just for the cognoscenti.

Now the Getty is just one major player in the market; the growing force in museums, interestingly, is the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, since the arrival there of George Goldner. As for the private collectors, Old Master drawings have become the new passion of a particular breed of cultivated, monied American (most of their counterparts in Europe just don't have the cash).

And it is not only the Park Avenue crowd which has begun immersing itself in the market; thanks to the re-education wrought by Modern art, the more expressive, calligraphic sketch - the direct, energetic drawings that reveal something of the workings of the artist's mind

- are just as likely to grace some cool young designer's white- walled downtown loft.

Forget that stuffy, off-putting "Old Master" tag, we are now in the realm of the Master drawing, be it 15th century Italian, 19th century French or 20th century German.

Recent rediscoveries and high-profile sales have continued to fuel drawings-fever. Last July, for instance, saw the sale of the late Sir Brinsley Ford's Michelangelo drawing for a record 8 million, a work presumed destined for the Met - if an export licence is granted.

Since then London dealers Colnaghi have paid more than 1 million for a ravishingly beautiful Bronzino drawing discovered in France, and almost 2 million for a Cuyp panorama.

This week in London sees Sotheby's offer a monumental Michelangelo study of a mourning woman (estimate 6 million-8 million), a drawing only recently discovered at Castle Howard, and Christie's an exquisite Leonardo (expected to fetch more than 3.5 million), a tiny silverpoint drawing of a horse and rider.

SO, with the circus in town for the sales, a group of the capital's specialist dealer has launched Master Drawings in London, a two-week bonanza of gallery shows. No other city can match the material or the expertise available on the London market, or the accessibility of its great public collections. Anyone in possession of ID can stroll into the British Museum or V&A print rooms without an appointment and ask to see boxes of anything from Gainsborough to Michelangelo (there is not a hope of doing that in Italy or France). With the dealers concentrated into only a few parts of Mayfair and St James's, there is no need for a costly fair like the Salon du Dessin in Paris, it is just open house until the 13th.

Those private dealers who do not have premises nearby have simply borrowed them (interestingly, this is the one art market dominated by women).

The initiative, modelled on the highly successful Asian Art in London, is the brainchild of private dealer Crispian Riley-Smith. Its aims are twofold: to remind existing collectors that there is a huge amount of material to see in London outside the salerooms, and to encourage others - not least the ever-elusive British buyer - just to take a look. Good drawings are still to be found for less than 1,000. ("The real problem is getting people to buy," bemoans Mr Riley- Smith.

"The British think that all dealers are crooked.") One of London's oldest and most distinguished drawings dealers, Colnaghi, for instance, is not only showing its masterpieces - don't miss the Bronzino; you're safe, it's already sold to an American collector - but extraordinary works by less familiar, even unfamiliar, names such as Lucien Ott or the 20th century Tenerife artist, sculptor and printmaker, Francisco Borges Salas.

Spink-Leger's Lowell Libson has exclusively selected less valuable exhibits to emphasise the point that it is still possible to buy drawings of "significance, interest and beauty" for relatively modest sums (prices here start at 1,800 for a drawing by George Richmond). Anyone who makes the rounds of the dealers (ask any of them for a map) will find a great deal in every sense - between New Bond Street with the 6 million Michelangelo and St James's, where the 3.5 million Leonardo now resides .

Copyright 2001
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