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The Line of Beauty: Drawings from the Collection of Howard and Saretta Barnet

31 January 2018 | 10:00 AM EST | New York

SALE TOTAL

11,618,250USD
Browse Lots
  • Claude Gellée, called Claude Lorrain
    The Valley of the Aniene, Near Tivoli, With the Ruins of the Aqua Anio Novus Aqueduct

    Lot Sold 1,635,000 USD

  • Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes
    No Ilenas tanto la cesta (Don't Fill the Basket So Full)
    Lot Sold 2,115,000 USD

  • Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, called Parmigianino
    Recto: Shepherds for an Adoration
    Verso: Two Putti Among Foliage
    Lot Sold 350,000 USD

  • Lucian Freud
    Portrait of Balthus
    Lot Sold 250,000 USD

  • Edgar Degas
    Deux jockeys
    Lot Sold 350,000 USD

  • Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
    Portrait of Alexis-René Le Go
    Lot Sold 1,035,000 USD

  • Samuel Palmer, R.W.S
    A Church with A Boat and Sheep
    Lot Sold 2,415,000 USD

Browse Lots
Sale Number: N09809 Lots : 28

SALE TOTAL

11,618,250USD DOWNLOAD RESULTS
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Overview

The superb collection of just 28 drawings, formed over some 40 years from the 1970s by the New York couple Howard and Saretta Barnet, is highly unusual in its combination of small overall size, great chronological span and exceptionally high quality.  Selecting their drawings with razor-sharp aesthetic judgement, the Barnets assembled a group of drawings that told the whole story of five centuries of the art of drawing in Western Europe, though just 28 works, each of the very highest quality and beauty.  Despite being very different from each other in date, geographical origin, technique, style and function, these drawings somehow all speak the same language, and reflect a powerful, consistent taste.  Rarely has a more perfectly chosen collection been formed, in any collecting field.

The works cover nearly 500 years of Western art, from the superb early Renaissance landscape, drawn around 1500 by Fra Bartolommeo, to the rare and penetrating portrait of fellow-artist Balthus, drawn by Lucian Freud in 1989.  In between these two bookends are magnificent drawings by the great 17th-century landscape master, Claude Lorrain, by the five top draughtsmen of 18th-century France and Italy (Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard, Tiepolo, Guardi), by the most visionary of Spanish artists, Goya and Picasso, and by two of the giants of 19th-century French art, Ingres and Degas.

The sale offers not only a unique and liberating insight into what makes a great drawing, but also gives another generation of collectors the opportunity to acquire works of the very highest quality, which have been off the market for several decades.  It forms part of a wider series of sales from the Barnet Collection, including Contemporary Art, African and Precolumbian Sculpture, 20th-century Design and Prints.

conditions of sale Saleroom Notice

Contact Information

Gregory Rubinstein
Senior Director
Head of Department, Worldwide
Old Master & Early British Drawings
+44 20 7293 5417
greg.rubinstein@sothebys.com
Cristiana Romalli
Senior Director
Senior Specialist
Old Master Drawings
+44 20 7293 5419
cristiana.romalli@sothebys.com
Alexander Faber
AVP
Specialist
Old Master Drawings
+1 212 606 7552
alexander.faber@sothebys.com
Claire Anderson
Senior Cataloguer
Old Master Drawings
+44 20 7293 5333
claire.anderson@sothebys.com
Mark Griffith-Jones
Director
Specialist
British Watercolours, Drawings and Portrait Miniatures
+44 20 7293 5083
mark.griffithjones@sothebys.com
   
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