Henri Matisse, Nu au coussin bleu, lithograph, 1924. Estimate $40,000 to $60,000. Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.

NEW YORK, NY.- Swann Auction Galleries’ September 22 auction of 19th & 20th Century prints and drawings in New York features a host of American and European masters spanning the past 200 years. 

From Manet and Renoir to Whistler and Toulouse-Lautrec, 19th century artists meet leading lights of the 20th, including Picasso, Matisse, Miró, Chagall, Braque and Dalí. 

Édouard Manet's L'Exécution de Maximilien de Mexique, a lithograph from 1868, depicts the scene from the artist’s celebrated oil on canvas of the same year and is estimated here at $50,000-80,000.

Édouard Manet, L'Exécution de Maximilien de Mexique, lithograph, 1868. Estimate $50,000 to $80,000. Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.

Carrying hopes of $80,000-120,000, Salvador Dalí’s The Reality of a Dream, from 1960, a pen and sepia ink drawing, exemplifies the artist’s grotesque yet meticulous style and recalls his 1940 oil painting Daddy Longlegs of the Evening–Hope!, now in the Dalí Museum, in St Petersburg, Florida. 

Salvador Dalí, The Reality of a Dream, pen and sepia ink, 1960. Estimate $80,000 to $120,000. Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.

No fewer than six works by Picasso will be on offer, with estimates ranging from $10,000 to $50,000. They include three ceramics from the 1950s and ‘60s, led by Laughing-eyed Face, a 1969 piece guided at $25,000-35,000. Carrying the same hopes is Jeunesse, a 1950 lithograph, and the celebrated 1922 etching Les Trois Femmes. Completing the Picasso offering are two linocuts, L'Espagnole (Portrait de Jacqueline en Carmen), a colour impression from 1962, estimated at $35,000 to $50,000, and Homme barbu couronné de feuilles de vigne, another colour linocut from the same year, which is expected to fetch $20,000 to $30,000. 

Pablo Picasso, Les trois femmes, etching, 1922. Estimate $25,000 to $35,000. Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.

Paul Signac’s sepia ink and charcoal drawing, Bourg St.-Andeol, dates to 1926 and is expected to fetch $10,000 to $15,000. 

Paul Signac, Bourg St. Andeol, sepia ink and wash with charcoal, 1926. Estimate $10,000 to $15,000. Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.

The sale also includes a run of scarce prints by American expatriate and etching revivalist James A. M. Whistler, while other important artists whose forays into printmaking will take centre stage include Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Two signature works come from an American artist who first made her name as a co-exhibitor of the Impressionists in Paris and collaborated closely with Degas over a number of years. 

Among American highlights is a broad offering of Regionalist prints, including an extensive collection of Thomas Hart Benton lithographs. We move from the rural to the urban with a run of early twentieth century prints depicting the ever-changing New York City, featuring several of Martin Lewis' best-known prints, including Relics (Speakeasy Corner), drypoint, 1928. 

Martin Lewis, Relics (Speakeasy Corner), drypoint, 1928. Estimate $30,000 to $50,000. Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.

Martin Lewis, Little Penthouse, drypoint, 1931. Estimate $12,000 to $18,000. Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.

The colour aquatint and drypoint Under the Horse Chestnut Tree (1896-7) dates to the most creative period of Mary Cassatt’s career and is offered here at $40,000-60,000, while Feeding the Ducks, a colour aquatint and etching with drypoint, c.1894, is guided at $20,000 to $30,000.

Mary Cassatt, Feeding the Ducks, color aquatint and etching with drypoint, c.1894. Estimate $20,000 to $30,000. Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.