Like one of James Bond’s Martinis, the once tranquil waters of the Old Master drawings market have recently been decidedly shaken (not just stirred). A new generation of dealers has had the audacity, or temerity, to present not only the traditional fare of Italian and northern masters of the 16th to 18th centuries and occasional additions from early the 19th century but also works of the 20th century. Even, sometimes, of the 21st.

It was probably the distinguished London-based dealer Jean-Luc Baroni who first began to include the occasional bravura Degas or Boldini watercolour at the end of his catalogues in the late 1980s. Since then, prompted by the dearth of high-quality Old Master drawings coming to the market, numerous dealers have begun to inch their way along the 19th century and beyond. None, however, has been bolder than the British private dealer Flavia Ormond, who two years ago began to embrace not only coolly considered abstract pencil drawings by Ben Nicholson but the likes of Richard Long dripping white china clay down shiny black card or printing circles of fingerprints in Avon mud on Korean paper.