Swann Auction Galleries opened the fall season with a marathon sale of 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings, breaking multiple records and earning more than $2.6M. The Tuesday, September 19 auction offered 635 examples of fine and museum-quality works, many of them originals, to a crowded hall of bidders. The top lot of the sale was a large black-and-white lithograph by Pablo Picasso of Françoise Gilot, titled Françoise sur fond gris, 1950, which sold after breakneck bidding to a buyer on the phone for $125,000. Of the 49 works by the master offered in the sale, 75% found buyers, for a total of $389,590. Additional highlights included the color linoleum cut Les Banderilles, 1959, and the aquatint Femme au fauteuil II: Dora Maar, 1939, each of which sold for $27,500. A run of Madoura ceramics by Picasso also performed well, led by the platter Mat Owl, 1955, at $11,250. The sale featured a cavalcade of original and unique works
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