Private investor Jeffrey E. Horvitz, 57, started his professional career as a dealer in 19th and 20th-century art in Los Angeles in the 1970s. He changed careers in 1980, to work with the family real estate business in Florida. When it was sold in 1987, he became a private financial investor. Since 1983, he has built up an extensive and celebrated collection of 16th-19th century French and Italian drawings, recognised as one of the best of its type in the world. To focus more on the French works, he is selling his collection of Italian drawings at Sotheby’s in New York on Wednesday.

As a former dealer in contemporary art, why did you start buying Old Master drawings in the early 1980s?