French drawing market

March is an excellent month in France for sales of works on paper. The Salon du Dessin and related events make Paris the drawings capital of the world. The drawings fair provides auction houses with the opportunity to organise prestige sales on a particular theme. This segment grows a little more each year in France, but the drop in prices, particularly for works by home-grown artists, has taken off some of the shine.

The drawings segment in France has enjoyed constant growth down the years, thanks in particular to the continually improving quality of works sold. As a result, the average price for a drawing sold here has never been as high as in 2004, at EUR 4,140 versus EUR 3,480 in 2002 and around EUR 3,300 in 2001 and 2000. This trend has been driven by increasing numbers of records. Some of the most spectacular have included EUR 1.3 million for Paul Gauguin’s 1892 pastel, Tête de Tahitienne, de profil à gauche (sold by Piasa during the 2003 Salon du Dessin), and EUR 1 million for Le siège de Yorktown and La prise de Yorktown (1786) by Louis Nicolas Van Blarenberghe at Rouillac in June 2003. More recently, on 21 December 2003, another Paul Gauguin pastel from 1894 fetched EUR 430,000, this time at Thierry-Lanon in Brittany. The index for Gauguin’s works on paper climbed 10% last year, boosted by the centenary of his death and exhibitions on the Pont Aven School.y.

French art movements Price indices for drawings/watercolorsArtprice selection of French movementsPrice indicesbase 1993 = 100Annual Growth200220032003/200217th C. French Drawing219.85175.02-20.4%18th C. French Drawing 215.49195.97-9.1%French Romanticism191.08187.29-2.0%Barbizon School82.4389.929.1%French Orientalism178.81172.57-3.5%Pompier art86.45106.5823.3%French Impressionism237.29184.18-22.4%Pont-Aven School207.61278.7534.3%French naive art119.48161.0434.8%Fauvism181.83106.94-41.2%Cubism202.79142.79-29.6%Surrealism204.92176.44-13.9%School of Paris155.83108.53-30.4%2nd School of Paris162.16148.64-8.3%Art Brut185.3178.01-3.9%New Realism125.69126.090.3%Narrative Figuration159.17142.55-10.4%Figuration libre308.93267.18-13.5%

In all, 39 drawings went for more than EUR 100,000 in France in 2003. The drawings auctions held by Christie’s, Piasa and Tajan at the time of the 12th Salon du Dessin last March generated sales of almost EUR 3.5 million from fewer than 300 lots. Works on paper selling for more than EUR 10,000 accounted for nearly 7.8% of the French market, against barely 6.4% in 2002. This means that even though the number of drawings changing hands in France plummeted by 14% between 2000 and 2003, the value of the country’s share of the global market advanced by almost 2 percentage points. France now boasts 14.5% of sales by revenue and 24% of sales by volume. But these outstanding results conceal another reality – that prices for most French art movements have fallen dramaticall

While there is an improving trend in the quality of works on paper sold in France, prices dropped overall in 2003. Along with photography, it is one of the sole market segments to be affected by deflation, with prices dropping 5% in the space of 12 months. This depreciation has made drawings the least profitable medium on the market: EUR 100 invested in a drawing in 1996 would be worth an average EUR 113.5 in January 2004 – an average annual increase of 2%. By way of comparison, paintings provided an average annual return in excess of 4% over the same period.
But not all areas have seen prices fall in the same way. The most speculative segments of recent years have been hardest hit, led by antique drawings. Like Italian renaissance works and 17th century drawings, French 17th and 18th century works on paper, after making strong gains in 2001 and 2002, declined steeply in 2003 to lose 10% and 15% of their value respectively over the year. Of antique drawings, only 17th century Northern School works are holding their value.
The downtrend is also affecting modern works on paper. All the major movements of the first half of the 20th century – Cubists, Fauvists and Paris School – are experiencing falling prices. Despite the boost from the André Breton sale, even surrealist works fell by 15% over the course of the year. The same applies to works from the second half of the last century, with the new figurative movements (narrative figurative works by Valerio Adami, Peter Klasen and Jacques Monory and free figurative works by Robert Combas and Hervé Di Rosa) also depreciating. New Realism and Art Brut held their ground. There was one notable exception, with a doubling in 2003 in prices for drawings by members of the Supports-Surfaces group led by Claude Viallat.
Apart from a handful of very rare exceptions, only French 19th century drawings seem to have been spared. Their value has either remained stable – as with the landscapists, Impressionists and Orientalists – or increased slightly – as with the Romantics and Nabis. Nineteenth century drawings have seen hardly any speculation over the past decade. For example, the price of drawings by landscapists grew only 12% between 1993 and 2003, and those by the Pompiers and Impressionist movements went up by 7% and 28% respectively. By contrast, the indices for French works from the 17th and 18th centuries doubled in value over the same period.

In looking to make a gain on resales, enthusiasts tend to focus on segments that have been neglected for some years, where there is still significant scope for price rises. At the moment, Barbizon School landscapists and Pompier artists are very promising from a speculative viewpoint. But apart from the signature and genre, attention must also be paid to how well the work is preserved, especially if it is already over a hundred years old.
Sketches need to be in perfect condition to find a buyer. 36% of works on paper are bought-in, compared with 29% in 1999. Collectors, more demanding than ever, are turning their noses up at marks and folds. Above a certain price level, these defects become insurmountable problems. In France, under a third of lots valued at less than EUR 1,000 are bought-in, with the figure rising to 43% for those above EUR 5,000.