Drawings & Pastels

Drawing is a type of graphic art created with lines and areas of tone applied to paper usually with pencil, charcoal and coloured pencil, but a wash may also be applied.

They frequently serve as preparatory studies for other works, but are also considered works of art in their own right. A practitioner of drawing is known as a draughtsman.

Pastels are created using a stick made of pure pigment and a binder.

A key part of the general art market, both are also specialist collecting areas in their own right.


Benjamin Zix sketch

Louvre buys sketches showing Napoleon’s seizure of art during Prussian campaign

08 October 2019

A group of drawings and a sketchbook compiled by an artist assigned to Napoleon’s campaigns in Prussia and Poland in 1806-7 has been secured by the Louvre at a Toulouse auction.

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Ink Asia offers artwork food for thought

30 September 2019

'Le vol de pensée' (2010), shown right, is offered for $25,000 at Ink Asia on the stand of Singapore gallery iPreciation. The framed ink-on-paper composition, 2ft 7in x 2ft 2in (79 x 65cm), is by Gao Xingjian, a Chinese-born artist working in France.

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Cricket scenes pitch in

23 September 2019

A selection of Victorian cricket scenes (one shown below) by Lucien Davis (1860-1941) was offered at Roseberys London (25/20/12% buyer’s premium).

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Kelly now enjoying the Lakes limelight

23 September 2019

The prolific artist Percy Kelly (1918-93) was averse to the limelight and only a few of his paintings were shown publicly during his life. But a major retrospective at the Tullie House gallery Carlisle in 2015 and a birth centenary last year has helped raise the Cumbrian artist’s profile.

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Draw Art Fair sold to duo behind British Art Fair and Fair for Saatchi

17 September 2019

Robert and Johnny Sandelson, owners of British Art Fair and FairforSaatchi, have bought London’s Draw Art Fair.

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Pick of the week: Living up to the teapot with a punchline

16 September 2019

George du Maurier (1834-96) joined the staff at Punch magazine in 1865, drawing two ink cartoons a week until his eyesight deteriorated in 1891. His most common targets were the affected manners of Victorian society and Britain’s growing middle class in particular.

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Chiswick Auctions attracts more Constable consignments including £70,000 pencil landscape

15 July 2019

Just four months after identifying two tiny compositional drawings as the work of John Constable (1776- 1837) and selling them for close to £90,000, west London saleroom Chiswick Auctions struck gold again with a third ‘rediscovered’ landscape.

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Lowry cricket match and Henry Moore’s Second World War drawing are top hits at Sotheby's

08 July 2019

A Cricket Match (1938) by Mod Brit giant LS Lowry (1887-1976) was the fitting headliner at Sotheby’s. Offered in the midst of the Cricket World Cup, the 18in x 2ft (46 x 61cm) oil on canvas showing a back-street match played by local children in Salford sold for a mid-estimate £950,000 to a UK private buyer.

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Hirschfeld steps into the saleroom

08 July 2019

Works produced in the 1940s by Al Hirschfeld figured prominently among the higher priced lots at a June 4 Illustration Art sale held in New York.

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Burne-Jones sketches head to Delaware museum via Cambridge

17 June 2019

Two studies by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones for his 1868 oil Hymenaeus will soon be reunited with the finished painting.

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Pick of the week: Restituted Swiss self-portrait lights up saleroom

10 June 2019

Berlin auction house Grisebach posted an auction record for the Swiss artist Karl Stauffer-Bern (1857-91) on May 29 when it sold a self-portrait which had been recently restituted to the family of its original Jewish owners.

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Burne-Jones bares his soul in heartfelt letters offered at Cheffins' auction

03 June 2019

Tender letters from artist Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones to the daughter of his patron reveal the “emotional support” he craved.

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Singapore merchant's portrait is centre of attention at West Sussex auction

03 June 2019

This pastel portrait of a Singaporean merchant by Percy Carpenter (1820-95) is believed to have broken a 30-year auction record for the artist.

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London gallery showcases rediscovered drawings that record an Italian journey in 1817

20 May 2019

A collection of rediscovered drawings by the 19th century artist Elizabeth Frances Batty (1791-1875) feature at Bloomsbury gallery Abbott and Holder this month.

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Eyewitness view captures last action of the Indian Mutiny

20 May 2019

Painted by Lt Gen Henry Hope Crealock (1831-91), this 6ft 8in (2m) wide pen and ink drawing is an eyewitness account of The Action of Bareilly – the battle of the last stronghold of Indian independence in 1858.

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Six places to see and buy art in London this weekend

17 May 2019

This weekend London plays host to two major photography fairs, a new drawing fair and several gallery exhibitions.

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New drawings fair shows its sense of style

13 May 2019

An exhibition of works by René Gruau (1909-2004), whose illustrations helped to reinvigorate the Parisian fashion industry after the Second World War, features on the stand of Galerie Alexis Pentcheff at the inaugural 'Draw Art Fair London'.

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Book dealer Bryars starts new chapter as a model

06 May 2019

A portrait of rare books dealer Tim Bryars of Bryars & Bryars features in the Royal Society of Portrait Painters’ Annual Exhibition.

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Hand of Raphael suspected in Italian Renaissance work

19 April 2019

A drawing offered at a Paris auction with an attribution to Italian Renaissance painter Giovanni Francesco Penni (1488-1528) was hammered down at €1.13m (£980,000).

Lucas van Leyden

Search for UK buyer to pay £11.5m for Old Master drawing blocked from export

19 April 2019

A sketch by Dutch artist Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533) has been temporarily blocked from export in the hope of finding a UK buyer.

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