To a backdrop of plunging US inventory markets, an unpredictable US president, unstable geopolitics and incoming stricter guidelines on imports of some classes of artwork into Europe, the European Positive Artwork Truthful (Tefaf) definitely confronted manifold challenges when it opened in Maastricht on 13 March to VIP guests (the truthful continues till 20 March).
And but regardless of these challenges, exhibitors pronounced themselves happy by the second day. That they had not include excessive hopes, however early gross sales, reserves and curiosity did a lot to calm nerves.
As at all times, they have been drastically inspired by the extraordinary variety of museums, trustee teams and curators in attendance, together with these from the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York, the Artwork Institute of Chicago, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, Tate, the Hermitage and the Louvre—the total checklist fills eight pages. Then there have been hordes of personal collectors corresponding to Christian Levett, who has opened a personal museum within the south of France devoted solely to girls artists.
Picasso, Les Dormeurs (1964) proven by Landau Positive Artwork
Courtesy of Tefaf / Landau Positive Artwork
The truthful at all times affords a feast of works, from essentially the most traditional Outdated Masters to the stunningly offbeat. The costliest work on provide, apparently, was Picasso’s giant and slightly chaotic Les Dormeurs (1964) supplied for $50m on the stand of Landau Positive Artwork, which has areas in Montreal and Luzern, Switzerland.
Nevertheless the speaking factors of the truthful have been elsewhere. Trinity Positive Artwork from London was displaying a young work by Titian and Girolami Dente, Madonna and Little one with St Mary Magdalene (undated, on reserve). The identical stand additionally supplied Torment of St Anthony, after Schongauer and relationship from the seventeenth century, displaying all types of winged and clawed monsters baiting the bearded saint. Imported on a short lived licence, the work should return to Italy the place it was discovered, and may solely be saved in that nation.
One other non permanent import is the astonishing Velázquez, Mom Jerónima de la Fuente (1620), the portrait of a formidable-looking nun who would subsequently journey internationally to discovered the primary convent within the Philippines. She is depicted holding—even brandishing—a bronze crucifix, and the London vendor Stuart Lochhead can also be displaying, alongside the portrait, a sculpture of the crucified Christ regarded as modelled by Michelangelo. Whereas nothing would induce Lochhead to disclose the value of the Velázquez, the 25cm-high determine is tagged at €1.8m (£1.5m). It’s one in every of two variations initially in a Toledo convent, the opposite being within the Prado, and so Sophie Richard of the gallery has hopes that it could be exportable from Spain for a overseas purchaser, as soon as the papers are accomplished.
Stuart Lochhead’s stand at Tefaf Maastricht 2025
Picture: Jaron James. Courtesy of Stuart Lochhead
There have been different large names on view, together with a small however enticing Van Gogh with Rau gallery, Nonetheless Life with Two Sacks and a Bottle (1884) ($4.4m); the New Orleans vendor was additionally displaying Cézanne’s Fleurs dans un Vase avec Partition Musicale (1874-76).
One part, Showcase, options newer galleries and Raphael Durazzo offered abstracts by Hilla Rebay, a pal and confidante of Solomon Guggenheim and first director of the Museum of Non-Goal Artwork, which turned the Guggenheim; costs between $15,000 and $200,000. Basically there was fairly an emphasis on work by feminine artists, and Levett purchased a portrait of Marie Bracquemond (1840-1916), one of many few girls Impressionists, however who’s now being rediscovered, from the stand of Galerie Pauline Pavec.
The artistic endeavors at Tefaf are at all times marvellous and alongside all method of kunstkammer work are some uncommon finds. Amongst these are a Sixteenth-century ceramic waterspout embellished with Ottoman flowers from the Dome of the Rock (Sam Fogg, round €500,000); a Northern Music pottery jar stuffed to bursting with bronze cash, supplied by Vanderven Oriental Artwork; an Inuit youngster’s jacket made from seal intestines at Patrick Mestdagh; and an virtually life-size anatomical mannequin of a girl from the early seventeenth century, supplied by Kugel or “low seven figures in euros”, mentioned a gallery director.
This 12 months the €50,000 Tefaf Restoration Fund went to the Musée Condé within the Chateau de Chantilly for the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, which is being restored and might be on view within the chateau between June and October.
On view on the truthful was an beautiful ebook of hours made for Catherine of Aragon, round 1509, displaying her and her husband Henry VIII. Curiously, in accordance with Dr Sara Oberg Stradal of the exhibitor, Jörn Günter Uncommon Books, whereas manuscripts are typically a male buy, girls are sometimes patrons of books of hours. And he or she famous that they’ve one consumer who’s a girl aged in her 30s from Jap Europe.
Frank Prazan of Applicat Prazan was upbeat on the primary day, having bought three works together with Serge Poliakoff’s enticing summary Composition en bleu (round 1953) for €1.3m. “The truthful has began effectively for me, and I’ve curiosity in different works. I’m optimistic,” he mentioned.
