New York City - Drawings

An antique Megillah The Book of Esther, hand written on parchment by an expert Sephardi scribe and richly decorated with hand painted illustrations. The text panels are surrounded by...

Rare Yves Saint Laurent Original Pencil Croquis from the 1960's. Gifted to an American business partner who help to launch YSL Rive Gauche ...

A set of five original antique etchings depicting horses by Antonio Tempesta, Italian, 1555 to 1630. Engraved circa 1590. Antonio Tempesta, also called il Tempestino, was an Italian ...

Niobe Greek mythology theme signed, 1938 framed (1 chip off on frame finish).

An elegant 18th-century red crayon drawing depicting a muscular male arm grasping a staff, executed with fine hatching, subtle shading, and anatomical precision indicative of academi...

New York Café by Benny Andrews, A limited-edition lithograph ( 86/250), signed and numbered by the artist, and produced by Associated American Artists. Rendered in lithographic ink o...

An original Maison Jansen pencil drawing depicting an architectural detail "Petit Panneau Directoire" page 70 Stamped: Jansen, 9 Rue Royale Paris 8e

Bruno Pasquiier Desvignes (1930- ) In Cyclo Melodia, 1992. Ink on paper original Surreal style drawing in vintage cream and gold bead frame. France, 1992. Dimensions: 18" W x 14.25...

This charming drawing is a preliminary study for the larger drawing, Trois etudes de femme assise, coiffee d'une fontange, in the British Museum. This little gem comes from Brooke A...

Watercolor Landscape Study of the Palazzo Andrea Doria, Genoa. Antique French architectural study of the plan and gardens of the Doria Palace in Genoa, en...

Santa Maria della Salute drawing by Hercules Brabazon Brabazon (1821-1906). Crayon and pencil on tinted paper in water-gilt frame. Signed wi...

A large fine pastel drawing of an abstract figure from the Cordier and Ekstrom Gallery, Madison Avenue, New York by Gillian Bradshaw-Smith.

This ink figurative abstract Expressionist piece on paper is signed by its creator, noted New York School artist Salvatore Grippi. Though undated, the piece is similar in form and st...

From the whimsical world of German artist Otmar Alt comes this great mixed media on paper, circa 1969. He is known as one of the most significant contemporary artists in Germany. Along with Horst Antes and HAP Grieshaber...

This Mughal miniature was painted at one of the princely courts of India. It depicts a raven-haired princess in a gold-trimmed saffron-colored silk sari. Under a glowering evening sky she dawdles on a white marble terrace, with a pet fawn on a leash, before a landscape dotted with buildings nestled amongst trees beyond a river. Her hair, falling loosely about her shoulders, rather than carefully dressed on her head, indicates that she is a maiden. The overall mood is one of expectancy. Perhaps walking a pet and catching an evening breeze is a pretext to escape palace scrutiny for a lovers’ assignation. In Mughal India tender sentiments were a bridge to the erotic – and if this seems contradictory, so too is the balance of realism and caricature, and naturalism with the schematic. Both are hallmarks of miniatures painted in this place and time. The earliest Mughal Indian miniatures date to the 16th century. They were inspired by those painted at the refined Moslem courts of the neighboring Persian empire. They incorporated figures in spite of the Moslem faith’s proscription against depicting the human form. Such was the nature of sophisticated courtly life everywhere that beauty and pleasure trumped systems of morality. This was no less the case at the provincial Indian courts, where our miniature, marked by a charming pictorial naiveté, was most likely painted. Yet the artist was undeniably accomplished. His command of perspective, introduced by Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century, is seen in the landscape, which rolls back to a distant horizon, contrary to the flat two-dimensional ones following Indian-painting traditions. And if Mughal artists were influenced by Western art, the compliment was returned by Rembrandt and Sir Joshua Reynolds, among others, who collected Indian miniatures (as did, perhaps, Giovanni Bellini who painted in Mughal style the famous miniature of a Persian man...

Framed Gio Ponti drawing Accompanied by Gio Ponti Archive certificate attached to verso.

Invitation card for “Wink,” Takashi Murakami’s landmark installation held at Vanderbilt Hall, Grand Central Terminal, from March 14-April 13, 2001. 5” x 7”. Published by Creative Tim...

"Peche au Cachalot" (Sperm whale fishing) Original colored lithograph enhanced with watercolor by Louis Lebreton (? - 1866).

Charcoal abstract of geometric forms on paper (1959 signed: MICHAEL LOEW).      Though the painter Michael Loew is today best known for his colorful and gestural Abstract Expression...

One of a series of drawings Bernard Boutet de Monvel made circa 1922 while participating in the Croisière Citroën, an expedition comprising scientists and artists who traversed the S...

Oil Pastel Sketch on Paper

A wonderfully whimsical concept drawing of two vases. Authentication papers from the Gio Ponti archives provided with drawing.

A Double-sided Drawing: Studies of a Man Holding a Horn Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist, and study for an Ecce Homo Black chalk on buff paper 14 3/4″ high x 10 3/8″ wi...

Portraits pair Danish early 19th century, Denmark mahogany Frame. A pair of portraits of Queen Frederikke and King Christian VIII. In original mahogany frames.

White Bunny Drawing by Oleg Cassini for Playboy October 1979, Signed. Illustration of a woman wearing a white body suit, choker, and hat. Signed by Oleg Cassini. Notice the body suit is in the shape of the head of a bunny with clever use of the 'whiskers'. Approximate Measurements: Length: 11" Width: 14" Property from the Collection of Steven Rosengard, Chicago, Illinois This original drawing was commissioned by Playboy and included in the October 1979 issue of Playboy Magazine (pages 225-227) in a feature that included works from designers such as Bill Blass, Oleg Cassini, Edith Head, Fernando Sanchez, and Monika Tilley, among others, who create their versions of the Playboy bunny costume. Candace Collins can be seen modeling some of the designs in the feature. Oleg Cassini is an icon of twentieth-century fashion. Though born to Russian aristocracy and raised in Italy, he built a fashion empire that was unmistakably American. Cassini is perhaps best known for the hundreds of designs he created for First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (see images 4-8), but his achievements as a collector, connoisseur, and quintessential twentieth-century man go far beyond Camelot. In 1913, Oleg Cassini was born in Paris to the Russian diplomat Count Alexander Loiewski and Countess Marguerite Cassini, a Russian aristocrat of Italian ancestry who also had an interesting link to America. The daughter of Count Arthur Cassini, Russian Ambassador to the United States during the McKinley and Roosevelt administrations, Marguerite dazzled turn-of-the-century Washington as her father’s official hostess and left her mark on the capital city. Stationed in Denmark when the Russian Revolution toppled the czar, Ambassador Cassini and family were exiled to Switzerland before settling in Florence, Italy, where young Oleg was raised. A true Renaissance man, he spoke Russian, French, and Danish before adding Italian and English; he studied medieval and modern European military history and costume and learned to draw; he learned horseback riding, fencing, and the art of chivalry; and, most importantly, he came to understand the struggles of the Russian titled class and other European aristocrats in the wake of the Russian Revolution and World War I. Countess Cassini started a successful fashion business in Florence, and soon the talented young Oleg was sent to Paris to sketch the latest collections for recreation in Italy. In Rome in his early 20s, Cassini created fashions for high society women and designed for a few films, which planted the seed for his move to Hollywood. The drive to reinvent himself brought Cassini to America in the 1930s; in his autobiography he describes arriving nearly penniless in mid-Depression New York City where his title as an exiled Russian Count meant even less than in war-devastated Europe. Down and out, Cassini struggled for employment, having sketching skills but no knowledge of the wholesale trade required for survival in Manhattan’s Seventh Avenue fashion district. However, he excelled at making connections, and Cassini slowly entered New York society. He was soon joined by younger brother Igor (who had studied in America and travelled with the young Emilio Pucci) and his parents, the once-dazzling Countess and his father, the displaced diplomat still loyal to Russia. The family settled in Washington, D.C., and Igor worked his way up the Hearst newspaper chain to become the famous society columnist Cholly Knickerbocker. In New York, Oleg Cassini married the troubled socialite Merry Fahrney (who would go on to marry eight times), but the marriage ended in scandal for Oleg, and he decided to follow his original intention and head for Hollywood. Despite initial difficulties, Cassini gained access to Hollywood’s elite (partially through his skills on the tennis court), and was soon hired as a designer at Paramount Pictures alongside the redoubtable Edith Head. In her 1941 film debut I Wanted Wings, Veronica Lake wore a memorable Cassini design. That same year, Cassini met and married the newest young Hollywood star on the scene, the beautiful 20th Century Fox–talent Gene Tierney. With the outbreak of World War II, Cassini enlisted in the Coast Guard but was transferred to the U.S. Army Cavalry which allowed officers of foreign birth. He attended basic training at Fort Riley, Kansas, and the horsemanship he learned as a boy served him greatly. He attended Officer Candidate School and reached the rank of First Lieutenant (he also became an American citizen at this time, losing his title of Count). Cassini spent several years posted at Fort Riley, where Tierney joined him before he landed a convenient military post in Hollywood. As Tierney’s career thrived (she played the title role in Otto Preminger’s Laura in 1944), she was able to assert her influence over 20th Century Fox’s head Daryl Zanuck, who hired Cassini as designer for Tierney on her 1946 film The Razor’s Edge, which proved to be a brilliant showcase for his talents. The pair separated the same year and, again seeking reinvention, Cassini re-established himself in New York City as a fashion designer. By 1950, the Oleg Cassini label was born. Combining his knowledge of Old World and modern Europe, Hollywood, the tennis courts of Palm Beach and Newport, and of course, New York City, Oleg Cassini invented a new brand of fashion that was distinctly American and of its moment. For his first collection, Cassini took to the stage, narrating the looks and imbuing the scene with his personality, unusual in an industry where the designers typically remained backstage and the models were called by number over a PA. The first collection was a smash — the president of Lord & Taylor devoted all of their storefront windows to his designs — and by 1955 sales had reached $5,000,000. Oleg Cassini’s career had turned a very positive corner. Cassini spent the early 1950s traversing the country, personally selling his collections to department stores in the interior, something his predecessors had never done, and moving between the Hollywood and New York scenes. Cassini’s brother Igor coined the term “the Jet Set” for this generation that constantly flew from New York to Los Angeles (then a ten-hour flight), Las Vegas, Paris, Rome, and the Riviera. In 1954, Cassini set out to woo Grace Kelly and sent her roses every day. The two were briefly engaged before her marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco. In December 1960, Cassini’s career-defining opportunity came when he was chosen by Jacqueline Kennedy to design her fashions for the White House. Cassini had long known Joe Kennedy and his war-hero son John, and had first met Jacqueline Bouvier before her marriage in the early 1950s. Invited by President-Elect Kennedy to meet Jacqueline at Georgetown Hospital (she had just given birth to son John Jr.) to present to her drawings of potential dresses and First Lady looks, Cassini worked furiously to prepare a new line for the First Lady. Mrs. Kennedy had always had her clothes made by the top French couturiers of the day, but for the White House she wanted an American designer. Cassini wrote in his autobiography that he told the First Lady: “‘You have an opportunity here,’ I said, ‘for an American Versailles.’ She understood completely what I was trying to communicate; she began to talk excitedly about the need to create an entirely new atmosphere at the White House. She wanted it to become the social and intellectual capital of the nation” (Oleg Cassini, In My Own Fashion, 1987, p. 327). Mrs. Kennedy loved Cassini’s design for a gown to wear to the Inaugural Gala (she had already ordered a dress from Bergdorf’s for the Inaugural Ball), and Cassini was selected as the First Lady’s designer and was soon dubbed the “Secretary of Style.” From 1960 to 1963, Oleg Cassini would design over 300 items for Mrs. Kennedy, creating the “Jackie Look” that contributed not only to a fashion revolution but also the dawn of a new age. Cassini wrote that “Jackie played a very active role in the selection of her clothes. She loved brilliant colors — pistachio, hot pink, yellow, and white among others. Her sense of style was very precise; she would make editorial comments on the sketches I sent her. She always knew exactly what she wanted; her taste was excellent” (Oleg Cassini, In My Own Fashion, 1987, p. 334). After the Camelot years, Cassini’s business flourished and grew into a major industry; his name appeared on everything from couture to tennis-, sport-, and swimwear, car interiors, housewares, and perfume. He collected beautiful and rare artwork, arms and armor, and antique furniture, and lived the lifestyle projected by his image. From this period onward, Cassini also came to live in important homes. Of his Gothic Gramercy Park townhouse on Manhattan’s 19th Street he would write imaginatively, “I walked into the foyer and immediately fell in love. It was a place unlike any other in New York, a sixteenth-century Dutch house transported brick by brick from Europe by the Wells Fargo family in the early twentieth century. There was a vaulted, twenty-foot ceiling in the living room, leaded windows, elegantly carved wood paneling...

Eugene Berman (1899–1972) An untitled stage design, ink and wash on paper. French, circa 1950. Signed lower right: EB.

An exceptional French oil on canvas, "Feeding the Doves", Signed and Dated by E. Munier, 1890. Émile Munier is one of the most sought after and most talented French artists of the 18...

Pencil Sketch of Bull in the Ring on Paper

Original watercolor opera costume design by Charles Betout, the principal costume designer for the Comédie-Française in Paris from 1919 til his death in 1939. Betout was renowned for...

One of a series of drawings Bernard Boutet de Monvel made circa 1922 while participating in the Croisière Citroën, an expedition comprising scientists and artists who traversed the S...

A wonderfully whimsical concept drawing of a vase. Authentication papers from the Gio Ponti archives provided with drawing.

Abstract expressionist still life drawing on paper by Salvatore Grippi, 1960s. Gorgeous colored graphite still-life on paper. Signed and dated. From artist’s estate.

Pen, ink and gouache on paper, painting "The Temple of Dendur' by Eugene Berman. Signed and dated, 1964. Framed size is 28.25 x 22.25.

Stunning early master illustration by Bill Nelson in his preferred medium of colored pencil for the Cincinnati Magazine cover story (May 1980). Framed. Ta...

Gorgeous collage of layered paper resembling bundles of falling textile but in two dimensions. A great melding of the figural and the completely abstract as well as various media. Si...

One of a series of drawings Bernard Boutet de Monvel made circa 1922 while participating in the Croisière Citroën, an expedition comprising scientists and artists who traversed the S...

One of a series of drawings Bernard Boutet de Monvel made circa 1922 while participating in the Croisière Citroën, an expedition comprising scientists and artists who traversed the S...

Ivan Alexandrovich Gerassimoff, 1885-1954, was active in the 30s in Shanghai and Harbin, moving to Tashkent after WWII. His style was strongly influenced by Alexander Yakovlev, a not...

Emilio Terry -- architect, interior, and furniture designer -- was the inventor and sole-practitioner of what was drolly referred to as his “Louis XVII style...

A spare ink drawing with light watercolor washes depicting bare winter trees set against low mountains, a fence line suggested in economical linework. The composition reflects McDani...

Large mono-print by Harry Bertoia, initialed and numbered 1857 on rice paper set mounted in oiled walnut frame. From the Bertoia Family collection. A beautiful rendering of his sculp...

Joe Bradley Etching, Untitled. This piece is signed, dated, and numbered to verso '21/100 Joe Bradley 18'. This work is number 21 from the edition of 100 published by Paupers Press, ...

Hercules Brabazon Brabazon watercolor of Venetian view. Signed with initials HBB inscribed in artist's hand. Dimension: Frame: 12.5" x 16" ...

Exceptional pencil charcoal drawing of Michael Jackson (one of our best customers), signed Charlotte and dated 1983, matted and mounted in giltwood frame measuring 13 1/2 by 25 1/2 b...

Italian Lake Palace Ink Drawing. Italian ink drawing of island palace La Casina Vanvitelliana sul Lago Fusaro. Eighteenth century ink on paper drawing in a...

A fantastic gouache on paper from 2008 by Michael Glier, a recipient of a National Endowment Fellowship in drawing and a Guggenheim Fellowship in painting. The drawing "Wall Street,...

This is a beautiful early 20th century artwork painting study after artist Henri Matisse (French b. Dec. 31 1869 d. Nov. 3 1954.) Female on lounge ch...

An original Maison Jansen pencil drawing depicting an architectural detail "Petit Panneau Empire" page 72 Stamped: Jansen, 9 Rue Royale Paris 8e

5125 Antique charcoal drawing of a landscape as viewed from the Charles river in Boston from 1927 Signed J.G.Berry

Pencil drawing in the manner of René Magritte, depicting a man in a suit with an apple for his face (similar to The Son of Man). While this item does not have authentication, it is b...

An original framed Maison Jansen pencil drawing depicting an architectural detail "Rosace de Plafond" page 137 Stamped: Jansen, 9 Rue Royale Paris 8e. This is one of a series of six...

An original Jansen pencil drawing depicting an architectural detail "Rosace de Plafond" page 137. Stamped: Jansen, 9 Rue Royale Paris 8e.

A. Licola. Italian Dove Sketches. Charming annotated studies of Italian doves/pigeons newly framed. Italy, 20th Century. Dimensions: 13.5" W x 16.5" H x 1'D; sight:  7.5" x 10.5"

Giuseppe Casciaro, Venetian figure study. Framed ink drawing of a Venetian gondolier with a hand and head study; with inscription and date on reverse ...

Italian pen and ink landscape. Antique pen and ink scene of a villa along the river in period gilt frame, Italy, early 19th century. Dimension: 1...

An original Maison Jansen pencil drawing depicting an architectural detail "Rosace de Plafond Louis XIV" page 133 Stamped: Jansen, 39 Rue Royale Paris 8e

Thirties female portrait. Chalk drawing in original silver gilt carved frame “Muriel 1930 by Charles to Elizabeth" United States, 1930. Dimensions in...

Original fashion drawing by American artist Carl "Eric" Erickson (1891-1958). Eric spect the 1940s attending and documenting fashion shows under the supervision of Diana Vreeland. Er...

Monica Perez "Yes" Original Charcoal on Canvas, 2023. W 80" x H 48" Monica Perez’s works are expressions of emotion—impulsive, spontaneous gestures of h...

A watercolor on board by Angelo Testa. Signed and dated (1962) Measures: 29½ H × 19½ W in. Angelo Testa was one of the foremost American textile designers of the mid-20th century. In 1945, he became the first graduate of the Institute of Design (formerly the New Bauhaus) in Chicago, where he studied under artist László Moholy-Nagy, architect George Fred Keck, and weaver Marli Ehrman...