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Among the highlights is Head of a Tahitian by Paul Gauguin, executed during the artist’s first stay in Tahiti in 1891–1892. The drawing belongs to a phase of graphic production undertaken before Gauguin embarked on major oil paintings and reflects his use of drawing as a primary investigative medium. Executed in coloured chalks and pastel, the sheet is closely related to imagery developed in Gauguin’s painting Te Nave Nave Fenua and to profile heads preserved in the Cahier pour Aline, hisillustrated scrapbook dedicated to his daughter. The recurrence of this motif across multiple works confirms its central role within Gauguin’s early Tahitian production.

Colnaghi Elliott Master Drawings is also presenting an important drawing by  Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, datable to circa 1658–1659. Executed in pen and brown ink with wash and touches of red chalk, the sheet belongs to a mature phase of Murillo’s graphic practice and is closely related to an earlier drawing in the Colomer collection. It documents Murillo’s method of resolving compositional and structural problems through drawing and confirms the medium’s function as an independent site of invention within his later production, rather than as preparatory material for painting.