A Journey Through Six Centuries of Drawing

This auction features several highlights, including a large pastel by Édouard Vuillard, an exceptional group of works on paper by Félix Vallotton, and a major drawing by Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson. The undisputed centrepiece of the sale is the pastel by Édouard Vuillard entitled Performance of a Play by Molière in the Salle des Cariatides at the Louvre (lot 131), estimated at €200,000–300,000. Executed in 1922 on brown paper laid down on canvas, this large-scale work documents the celebration of the tricentenary of Molière’s birth, staged in this historic setting where the playwright himself once performed before Louis XIV.

The work belongs to the Au Louvre series, which Vuillard produced alongside a decorative commission from the Swiss industrialist Camille Bauer. It boasts an illustrious provenance—having notably passed through the collections of Ker-Xavier Roussel and Jacques Dubourg—and was exhibited at the Fondation de l’Hermitage in 2018.

Another major highlight is the group of approximately eighty drawings by Félix Vallotton (lots 133 to 212), from the collection of Isabelle Lecomte du Noüy, inherited from her grandmother Gabrielle Bernheim, who became the Nabi painter’s second wife. This intimate corpus reveals Vallotton’s working methods: studies of nudes, preparatory sheets for paintings listed in the catalogue raisonné, and colour annotations hastily noted directly on the paper.

Among the most remarkable works are Study for a Nude Woman Seen from Behind, Blonde (1907, lot 137, estimate: €2,000–3,000) and Study for a Bather Seated on a Rock (1910, lot 167, estimate: €1,500–2,000). This ensemble, which has remained within a family closely connected to the Nabis, offers a significant insight into the genesis of the artist’s work.

Finally, the drawing by Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, Aeolus Unleashing the Winds Against the Trojan Ships (lot 86, estimate: €30,000–40,000), belongs to the artist’s extensive series of illustrations for Virgil’s Aeneid, a project he pursued throughout his life. It depicts lines 50–85 of the Aeneid, when Juno offers Aeolus the nymph who had been promised to him