Pierre PUVIS DE CHAVANNES

For the past 15 years, collectors and curators of drawings have met at the Salon du Dessin during the last week of March. The salon that is to be held at the Palais de la Bourse in Paris will bring together some 30 galleries that will exhibit almost 1,000 drawings from all periods.

Auction data in 2005 showed that the drawings segment represented almost 24.4% of total Fine Art transactions and 12.7% of turnover (vs. 11.6% in 2004).

With so few major works coming up for sale, prints constitute the majority of sales in this segment.

The leading lights of symbolism are Edward Coley BURNE-JONES (English), Pierre PUVIS DE CHAVANNES, Gustave MOREAU, Félicien ROPS and Odilon REDON (all French), Arnold BÖCKLIN (Swiss), James ENSOR (Belgian) and Edvard MUNCH (Norwegian).

Around 1890, in a reaction against impressionism and the creeping materialism of the industrial revolution, a new pictorial language began to emerge across Europe, symbolism. Not content with reproducing the real world, the symbolists broke away from narrative and landscape art and its canons, and sought to connect with their viewers’ sensitivity through shapes and colours. Prices for their work have risen steadily in the past 10 years (+116% between 1992 and June 2003), but the diverse personalities and nationalities making up the symbolism movement is reflected in a wide variation in prices.