The six-lot group had been consigned by his descendants. Research by the auction house revealed that two sheets of pencil and charcoal drawings in the small collection were by the German Expressionist and leading member of The Blue Rider art movement, August Macke (1887-1914).
The most valuable was an unframed 8¼ x 11½in (20 x 29cm) sheet of paper, dated 1907, and drawn on both sides with two ink head studies and the half-length portraits of a woman, possibly the artist’s sister Ottilie Macke, reading and bowed in concentration. It sold at £3700 against a £3000-5000 estimate.
A similar drawing from the same year depicting the artist’s sister with her head bowed sold at Grisebach in Berlin in November 2011 for a premium-inclusive €5124 (£4380).
The other Macke sheet in the group, comprising six pencil half-length portraits including one of a woman, possibly the artist’s wife Elisabeth Erdmann-Macke, also dated to 1907, sold to the continental trade on bottom estimate for £2000.
