Christie’s Paris First Gesture Auction March 2026 Features Carracci

Christie’s Paris prepares to launch one of the season’s most compelling drawing sales. “Old Master and 19th-Century Drawings & Terracottas: The First Gesture” opens on 25 March 2026, timed with the Salon du Dessin during Paris’s international drawing week.

The auction brings together approximately one hundred works spanning the 16th to 20th centuries. Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Annibale Carracci, Guercino, Anne-Louis Girodet, Victor Hugo, and Eugène Delacroix anchor a sale built around significant rediscoveries and distinguished provenance.

The Benjamin Fillon Rediscoveries

Three unpublished sheets from the Benjamin Fillon collection lead the discoveries. Last March, a Primaticcio drawing from this same collection achieved a world record at Christie’s. Benjamin Fillon, Prefect of Vendée in 1870, built his reputation as both art historian and collector with particular expertise in old master drawings.

Laurent de la Hyre‘s “Le Repos lors de la fuite en Egypte” demonstrates the sophisticated black chalk and grey wash technique that defined 17th-century French drawing (€10,000-15,000). Anne-Louis Girodet‘s “Group of the Bard’s Daughters” proves more ambitious. This major study for the Ossian painting commissioned for Napoleon’s Château de Malmaison combines black chalk, wash, and white heightening (€20,000-30,000).

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The Fillon group’s prize remains a preparatory study for the Carracci Gallery at Palazzo Farnese. This Annibale Carracci rediscovery (€30,000-50,000) gains particular relevance from the Louvre’s current exhibition celebrating “one of the greatest masterpieces of Western painting.”

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Royal Provenance

The Carracci’s ownership history reads like a directory of French collecting. Francesco Angeloni, Carracci’s friend, likely owned it first, possessing by 1642-1644 the largest group of Farnese Gallery preparatory drawings. Pierre Mignard, First Painter to King Louis XIV, acquired it next. Two Enlightenment giants followed: Pierre Crozat and Pierre-Jean Mariette.

German Collection Highlights

A 20th-century German private collection contributes significant works. Guercino’s “Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness” leads this group (€50,000-70,000). The religious subject employs an unusual technique for the artist: brown wash enriched with grey wash. The contrast between the saint’s gentle gaze and his kneeling body’s tension reveals Guercino’s psychological insight.

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Virgil Solis (1514-1562) represents the German Renaissance through “Two Swiss Landsknechts Making Music Under a Tree.” The Nuremberg master, following Dürer’s tradition, worked equally as painter, engraver, illustrator, and decorative designer (€20,000-30,000).

Tiepolo’s Unpublished Sheet

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo‘s “The Flight into Egypt Surrounded by Angels” emerges from a major European collection (€50,000-80,000). The drawing depicts a rarely illustrated episode: angels bringing bread and fruit to Joseph and Mary during their journey.

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This sheet belonged to a vast New Testament cycle. After Giovanni Domenico’s death in 1804, the series scattered across collections worldwide. Adelheid M. Gealt and George Knox recorded 113 sheets from the cycle in their scholarly catalogue. The offered work once belonged to Theodor de Wyzewa (1862-1917), the art historian, Mozart biographer, and translator of Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend.

Literary Giants as Visual Artists

Victor Hugo‘s seascape reveals his mastery beyond literature. Alternating vigorous brushstrokes with meticulous boat rendering creates dramatic intensity in ink and wash (€40,000-60,000).

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Hugo’s friend Eugène Delacroix contributes a Moroccan figure sketch in exceptional condition. Applied colour touches reveal the central importance of colour in his Orientalist production (€20,000-30,000). The work reflects Delacroix’s transformative North African journey.

Three-Dimensional Studies

Terracotta and plaster sketches extend the “first gesture” concept into sculpture. Charles-François Lebœuf-Nanteuil‘s plaster “Apollo” shows preparatory thinking for his stonework now in the Louvre’s Cour Carrée.

A terracotta Agriculture allegory, attributed to Dalou‘s circle, reflects 19th-century “sculpturomania” when public monuments proliferated throughout Paris.

Additional Discoveries

Antoine-Louis Barye‘s “Léopard et hermine dans un paysage” demonstrates the animalier sculptor’s wildlife mastery (€20,000-30,000). Marie-Alexandrine-Olympe Arson‘s botanical study “Bouquet de roses, pivoines, camélia et liseron bleu dans un vase sur un entablement de pierre” exemplifies scientific illustration’s finest tradition, executed in graphite and watercolour enhanced with gum arabic on vellum (€25,000-35,000).

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A Week of Exceptional Sales

Christie’s Paris schedules three major auctions within 48 hours. “La Bibliothèque poétique de Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller” opens the sequence on 24 March at 2:30 pm. “La Collection Veil-Picard” follows on 25 March at 2:30 pm. “The First Gesture” concludes at 4 pm the same day.

This concentration establishes Paris as the international drawings market epicenter during one of the calendar’s most important weeks. Following the success of recent major auction house achievements, this sale continues the momentum in the art market.

The exhibition opens 21-25 March, providing collectors and scholars essential viewing time before the 25 March sale. Works range from €10,000 to €80,000, making significant pieces accessible across collecting levels while maintaining the scholarly rigor that defines important drawing sales.

*Images: Christie’s