Old Master Drawings - Forbes.com
There are prime opportunities these days in the Old Master drawings market, an area that's been thriving since the recession took hold. The category is largely undervalued, but a few big sales are shining a new spotlight on the work. At Christie's London in December, a 12-by-8-inch black-chalk drawing by Raphael brought $47.9 million. Leon Black, director of Sirius Satellite Radio and cofounder of the Apollo Global Management Group, was reportedly the buyer. Raphael's Head of a Muse, a study for his grand 1508–11 Stanza della Segnatura frescoes in the Vatican, is one of the most beautiful women the artist ever evoked. Her emotive chalk lines are as close as an art lover can ever get to the hand of a great artist. That's the appeal for collectors of master drawings. The term "Old Master drawings" applies to works on paper made between the 15th and 19th century, typically in chalk, pen, silverpoint, ink, pencil, watercolor, or washes. Drawings may be studies for a larger work or pages from an artist's sketchbook, such as Leonardo's famous anatomical doodles. Or they may be signed drawings that were meant to be exhibited themselves, such as the Van Goyen Village Scene with an Open Market (1653) that London dealer Katrin Bellin-ger, of Colnaghi, is bringing to the TEFAF Maastricht fine art fair this month--part of the venerable fair's debut works-on-paper section--with an asking price of $123,000.For now, though, most draw-ings are not terribly expensive. "You can get a good little Bonnard for as little as $3,000," says Jill Newhouse, a drawings dealer in New York.
"You can buy a jolly nice Benjamin West for $10,000," chimes in London dealer Lowell Libson. As for the upper reaches of the market, "prices for very rare pieces have more than doubled since the recession," notes Bellinger, who set the previous record for a drawing in 2000 by spending $12 million for a Michelangelo. Although many collected names are famous artists--Dürer, Van Dyck, Goya, Tiepolo, Turner, Watteau, Degas--others are less well known but extraordinary draftsmen. Here's where the intimidation factor comes in. Would-be collectors need to do their homework. The fact that many drawings are unsigned, making attribution a leap of faith, won't appeal to the cautious buyer yet holds a certain allure for gamblers, of whom there are many in this category, dealers say."We sold a drawing recently for a fair amount," says New York dealer David Tunick, who's been in the field for 43 years, "and the buyer said, 'Can you guarantee its authenticity?' I said, 'I can guarantee it's from the period, but look, it was attributed to someone else in the 1970s. If down the road the attribution changes again, to Leonardo, are you going to give me several million dollars?' "
