Sotheby’s Old Master Drawings sales offer works created in Continental Europe between the 15th and the early 19th centuries using media such as pen and ink, chalk, metalpoint, brush and wash, watercolour and gouache, executed primarily on paper supports, but also sometimes on vellum. Styles and subjects vary enormously, ranging from working figure and composition studies by Renaissance masters such as Michelangelo, to designs for prints, stained glass, textiles or silverware, and independent landscape watercolours or natural history illustrations.

Our global team, located in London and New York, has overseen notable sales of work by artists such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn, Canaletto and Fragonard, amongst others.

Sotheby’s Old Master Drawings Department conducts two main sales per year in July in London, and in January in New York. Both sales include a section of Early British Drawings, Watercolours & Miniatures.

Upcoming auctions:
Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries
Live Auction: February 5, 2025, 11:00 EST, New York