The two most important trade fairs for drawings are back as they were: after the Salon du Dessin and Drawing Now in Paris had to be suspended due to the pandemic and then took place in a significantly reduced form, the venerable Salon du Dessin is celebrating with drawings by the old masters up to the late modern age now its thirtieth birthday.

Meanwhile, the more recent fair for contemporary papers, Drawing Now, has shown that its quality has steadily improved over the fifteen editions and that it has been able to position itself as an avant-garde counterpart to the Salon.

For the annual Salon du Dessin in the Palais Brongniart, 39 dealers bring the best works in their respective fields.

A good half of the galleries are French, the rest of the dealers come from the surrounding countries, the United States and Japan.

Five exhibitors are there for the first time, including Ambroise Duchemin (Paris).

On the stand, a subtly watercolored puma by French artist Nicolas Huet the Younger, who specializes in animal painting, catches the eye.

When you look at him, you think you can feel the velvety fur.

The sheet, created in 1811, was once part of the collection of the Saxon King Friedrich August II. Martin Moeller (Hamburg) also dedicated a wall of his stand to animal painting and another to German modernism.

Between Ludwig von Hofmann,

Max Beckmann and the less well-known Gottfried Brockmann are emblazoned with a master sheet by Emil Nolde.

The expressive watercolor portrait of a "young woman with dark hair" costs around 230,000 euros.

Arnoldi-Livie (Munich) shows old masters to the modern.

In addition to Pablo Picasso's ink drawing "Nu avec deux personnages" (around 450,000 euros), a chalk drawing by Joachim von Sandrart on "The Denial of Peter" (18,000 euros) stands out here.

One rarely sees works by this Frankfurt painter from the 17th century.

At Onno van Seggelen (Rotterdam), a graceful, red and white flamed tulip is reminiscent of the Dutch tulip mania.

Pieter Holsteyn the Younger painted them around 1645 for a flower catalog (22,000 euros).

Maurizo Nobile (Bologna/Paris) offers as a pair two landscapes in the classic style by the little-known French painter Jean-Pierre Péquignot, one Arcadian with the poet Homer, the other Nordic with the poetic figure Ossian (90,000 euros).

Rosenberg &

This year, 72 galleries are exhibiting at the contemporary Drawing Now fair, two-thirds are French.

Catherine Issert (Paris) surprises with fresh, Cézanne-inspired watercolor landscapes or still lifes by Gérard Traquandi, who until now has been better known for his abstract explorations of the texture of paint (1,900 to 7,000 euros).

Suzanne Tarasiève (Paris) is exhibiting for the first time the British artist Nina Mae Fowler, who depicts Hollywood stars in their glory as well as their misery in hyper-realistic pencil or charcoal drawings (2,500 to 22,000 euros).

The Eric Mouchet gallery (Paris) is showing the Franco-Swiss artist Christine Creuzat.

She creates abstract yet tactile silhouettes by superimposing tracing paper on black or red color fields in the manner of a silhouette, which – in homage to Matisse or Gozzoli – appear like portrait landscapes (1,500 to 3,200 euros).

In a solo, Werner Klein (Cologne) presents the German artist Christiane Löhr, who gently and sensually conquers the space in her pencil, ink or oil pastel drawings with reduced, organic lines (3,050 to 21,200 euros).

Salon du Dessin, Palais Brongniart, until May 23;

Admission 15 euros;

Drawing Now, Carreau du Temple, until May 22nd, admission 16 euros