After the US, the UK and China, France ranks fourth internationally amongst auction markets with the highest turnover, with Paris as its most important location. In recent years, the French capital has established itself as a major trading centre for works on paper, which will play a key part in Christie’s Spring Marquee Week.
See also: 6 Key Findings from the UBS & Art Basel Art Market Report 2026
Across five live auctions and one online sale, Christie’s will offer works by renowned artists with estimates ranging from four to seven figures. Two auctions stand out in particular: each is dedicated to a single artist and features works from private collectors within the artists’ inner circles.
One of the highlights is the online auction Henri Matisse: Tracer le lien, oeuvres sur papier de la Fondation Pierre et Tana Matisse, running from April 8 to 17 and featuring works consigned from the collection of Pierre and Tana Matisse. The leading lot is the charcoal drawing Femme allongée from 1944 (estimated at €50,000–70,000). The gallery owner Pierre Matisse (1900–1989) was the son of Henri Matisse. The proceeds from the auction will go to the foundation established by him and his wife, Tana.
See also: Matisse: Master of the Fauves
Live auctions will begin on April 14 with the Dans l’intimité de Pierre Bonnard: Collection Claude Terrasse sale, featuring works from the collection of Bonnard’s great-grandson Claude Terrasse (1925–2008). It will include works by the artist that have never before been offered for sale, including Midi au jardin from 1946 (estimated at €400,000–600,000), created in the garden of Bonnard’s beloved Villa Le Bosquet in the south of France.
See also: 8 Artists Inspired by the South of the France
The single-owner auction Radical Genius: Works on Paper from a Distinguished Private Collection, taking place on April 15, is dedicated not to a single artist but to a shared medium, bringing together landmark works in the history of drawing. Highlights include Piet Mondrian’s study for Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1942 (estimated at €3,000,000–5,000,000), Paul Cézanne’s Femme assise from 1902–04 (estimated at €3,500,000–5,500,000) and Pablo Picasso’s drawing Femme nue debout aux mains croisées, created in 1906 during his formative stay in the Pyrenean village of Gósol and later acquired by Gertrude Stein (estimated at €1,200,000–1,800,000).
See also: Piet Mondrian: Abstract Geometry on Canvas
On the evening of April 15, a first-class selection of works will go under the hammer as part of the 20th/21st Century Art – Evening Sale. One of the season’s highlights is Maurice Vlaminck’s Fauvist masterpiece La Femme au Chapeau from 1906 (estimated at €5,000,000–7,000,000), notable not only for its museum-quality status but also a distinguished provenance, having once belonged to the collection of the eminent Parisian art dealer Ambroise Vollard.
See also: 8 Patrons of the Parisian Avant-garde
Claude Lalanne’s iconic work Pomme de New York, the largest of her apple sculptures, is also offered at €5,000,000–7,000,000. Further works by her husband and creative partner, François-Xavier Lalanne, are included in the sale, which also features works by other renowned female artists, including Germaine Richier, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Anna-Eva Bergman, Olga de Amaral, and Berthe Morisot.
See also: Six Facts to Know: Les Lalanne
The sale also features high-quality works on paper from the Impressionist milieu. Alongside Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and a young Marc Chagall, Degas stands out with his 1894 pastel Femme en peignoir jaune se coiffant (estimated at €1,800,000–2,500,000). The 20th-century avant-garde is represented by Chaïm Soutine, Joan Miró, Paul Klee, Le Corbusier and Jean Metzinger, while post-war art includes by Cy Twombly, Pierre Soulages, Karel Appel, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Fernando Botero, and Serge Poliakoff. Finally, amongst the contemporary artists, Gerhard Richter, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Günther Uecker, Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley are worth keeping an eye on.
See also: The Scandal Behind Degas' Little Dancer
Contemporary and more recent art will take centre stage on April 16 with Christie’s Art Contemporain auction. Highlights include David Hockney’s iPad drawing The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven) – 2 January, 2024 (estimated at €150,000–200,000) and Marlene Dumas’s watercolour Life before birth from 1990 (estimated at €70,000–100,000). Accompanying them are fantastic works by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Cindy Sherman, Germaine Richier, Louise Bourgeois, Katharina Grosse, Elaine Sturtevant, Keith Haring, and Josef Albers.
See also: The 15 Most Expensive Female Artists
Christie’s final live sale, Art Impressionniste & Moderne, also promises to impress. Works by Paul Cézanne, Odilon Redon, Léon Spilliaert, Paul Klee, Berthe Morisot and Félix Vallotton will all go under the hammer on April 17. The highlight of the sale is a remarkable double-sided sheet by Vincent van Gogh, featuring the two drawings Cueilleuses de pois (recto) and Esquisse d'un paysage (verso), produced in 1890 and once owned by Dr Paul Gachet. The work on paper is estimated at €100,000–150,000 and was only recently rediscovered, having been in a Spanish collection for decades.
Want more articles like this straight to your inbox? Subscribe to our free newsletter!
“Works on paper offer an unmatched intimacy with the artistic process. As spaces of freedom and spontaneity, sketches and drawings reveal an artist's most private self. By preserving their gestures as direct traces of their thought and deeper intention, they stand as irreplaceable witnesses to the mysterious moments in which an artwork takes shape. Thus, paper can be seen as one of the privileged sites of artistic invention, the place where ideas first emerge and where the most innovative artists lay the foundations of radically new visual languages. This is precisely the spirit of the collection to be offered at auction on April 15,” says Antoine Lebouteiller, international specialist in Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie’s.
