When 19th-century artists collected drawings by their peers.

A Delacroix at Cézanne. A Manet at Degas. A Caspar David Friedrich at the sculptor's David d'Angers. In the 19th century, painters collected their peers' works, and drawing, an intimate and personal object, held a special place in these collections. These sheets were given to each other, exchanged out of friendship, admiration, and loyalty, and keeping them signified belonging to a circle. Friendships were forged at the Villa Medici among winners of the Prix de Rome, continued in Parisian studios, and left behind collections that are now scattered. Nearly one hundred and twenty works are brought together here thanks to loans from the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Metropolitan Museum and the museums of Angers, Besançon and Rouen. Some sheets are shown for the first time, and groups never before exhibited are reunited for three months. Ingres and Delacroix structure the journey, so keen were their contemporaries to preserve every last one of their drawings. These collections then met contrasting fates. David d'Angers' collection went to the museum in his city, where it remains today. Degas' collection, one of the most famous of its time, was dispersed at public auction after his death.

Focus on…

GÉRICAULT'S LEFT HAND
Black chalk, sanguine, and watercolor, circa 1823-1824. Weakened by illness, Géricault places his left hand flat on the paper and traces its outline. The painter Pierre-François Lehoux, who depicted the scene in the drawing itself, kept it before it entered the Louvre.

DELACROIX'S BOUQUET, AT CÉZANNE'S PLACE
Black pencil, watercolor, gouache, and pastel on two joined, almost square, gray-blue sheets of paper, sixty-five centimeters on each side. This floral explosion belonged to Cézanne, who readily acknowledged his debt to Delacroix.

THE FLANDRIN BROTHERS, ONE BY ANOTHER
Graphite, 1835. Hippolyte and Paul Flandrin portrayed each other on the same sheet. The composer Ambroise Thomas preserved this small monument to brotherly friendship.

DID YOU KNOW?
You could walk down Rue de Lille without seeing it. Behind the carriage entrance of an 18th-century townhouse, the Custodia Foundation houses old master drawings, prints, artists' letters, rare books, and paintings. It is one of the world's most important private collections of graphic arts, assembled by the Dutch collector Frits Lugt, whose foundation was established in 1947.

CUSTODIA FOUNDATION
From October 17, 2026 to January 17, 2027
121 Rue de Lille, 75007
Metro: Assemblée Nationale (Line 12), Invalides (Lines 8, 13)
Tue-Sun 12pm-6pm. Closed on Mon.
Price: €15 - Reduced price: €10 - Free for under 18s