Next week, Paris will once again celebrate the subtle diversity of drawing with the "Salon du Dessin". As every year, Old Master auctions with works on paper, but also paintings and sculptures accompany the exquisite collector's fair. Artcurial will present a top-class programme on 22 March. More than 200 works will be auctioned, from Florentine Renaissance artists such as Luca Penni to artists of the second half of the 19th century such as the Frankfurt painter Otto Scholderer. The total estimate is eight million euros.

Among the rarities on offer, a still life with melons and late summer fruits, attributed to the "Pensionante del Saraceni", enchants all the senses with subtle textures. It is one of only twelve paintings that are now recognized as works by the anonymous painter. He emulated Caravaggio and probably worked in the Roman studio of Carlo Saraceni. He probably executed the present still life between 1610 and 1620. It is valued at 1.5 to 2.5 million euros.

Works by Dutch and Flemish masters – Dirck Hals, Jan van der Heyden and Frans Snyders – also go under the hammer at Artcurial. Drawings and paintings by French artists predominate, including well-known artists such as Hubert Robert, Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Marguerite Gérard. A year ago, a masterpiece by Jean-Siméon Chardin, a still life with a basket of wild strawberries, achieved the record of 20.5 million euros at Artcurial. Now, with a tax of two to three million euros, a Chardin is again called as a toplot, this time a rediscovery, whose provenance data – "acquired by the antique dealer Yves Chalvin, Lyon; private collection, Lyon" – too short.

"Le grand buffet" is a painting from the early work, which is said to have been created in 1728. It shows a table richly loaded with dishes, fruits and a meat pie. A cat is interested in the pie and starts to jump on the blackboard. Both the pictorial elements and the execution are typical for Chardin. At some point, the canvas was shortened to landscape format at the top and bottom. The complete scene can be reconstructed by a copy of the painting, which was auctioned at Sotheby's in 2011. It is valued at 2 to 3 million euros.

Also on 22 March, Christie's will offer 95 lots of Old Master drawings; the overall expectation is around 1.3 million euros. One of Peter Paul Rubens' working methods was to make large-scale preliminary studies for his paintings. It is extremely rare for one of these drawings to come onto the market. In the case of the "Study of a Kneeling Man in Profile", it remains unclear which painting it served as a model – perhaps the tapestry "The Baptism of Constantine". Rubens attached particular importance to the light effects in the drapery of the coat and to the sensitive, serious facial expression. The drawing in black chalk with white whitening was acquired in 1867 by the young collector Johannes de Clercq from the collection of the banker Herman de Kat. Since then, it has remained in the family and has never been exhibited. The tax is 250,000 to 350,000 euros.

Also of high quality is a watercolour in longitudinal format by the german-French painter and architect Anton Ignaz Melling, which depicts a "procession in honour of a Turkish wedding". The numerous figures of this magnificent parade in Pera, on the Golden Horn, were drawn with the finest precision. In the background you can see the minarets of Constantinople, where Melling lived for 18 years as court architect of the sultan's family (estimate 200,000 to 400,000 euros).

On 23 March, Sotheby's is auctioning off the Elmore Collection, a fascinating group of works by Théodore Géricault that has never before been shown to the public. Among the 15 lots, for which about three million euros are expected, four watercolors and two paintings by the French painter of the Romantic period will go under the hammer. They have been family-owned for 200 years and are a testament to the friendship that connected Géricault with the English horse breeder Adam Elmore and his French wife Zoë.

Géricault's passion for the representation of horses found a new expression after he travelled to England for an extended stay at the age of 29, just four years before his death. For a time he lived with the Elmores and painted the thoroughbreds in the stud. The four watercolours with taxis between 80,000 and 120,000 euros show fiery pedigree horses, sometimes standing in the stable, sometimes with Zoë Elmore as a rider in the ladies' saddle. The Elmores also commissioned portraits of themselves in oil on canvas from their guest Géricault: the artist painted Zoë with a book in his hand on the reading divan of the veranda (800,000 / 1.2 million). Adam Elmore portrayed Géricault with the very personal view of a friend: standing on the beach in a stormy sea and looking into the distance (400,000 / 600,000).