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 Superb Artwork Honest (Tefaf) actually confronted manifold challenges when it opened in Maastricht on 13 March to VIP guests (the honest 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 all the time, they had been vastly 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 listing fills eight pages. Then there have been hordes of personal collectors equivalent to Christian Levett, who has opened a personal museum within the south of France devoted solely to ladies artists.
Picasso, Les Dormeurs (1964) proven by Landau Superb Artwork
Courtesy of Tefaf / Landau Superb Artwork
The honest all the time affords a feast of works, from essentially the most basic Previous Masters to the stunningly offbeat. The costliest work on supply, apparently, was Picasso’s giant and moderately chaotic Les Dormeurs (1964) provided for $50m on the stand of Landau Superb Artwork, which has areas in Montreal and Luzern, Switzerland.
Nevertheless the speaking factors of the honest had been elsewhere. Trinity Superb Artwork from London was exhibiting a young work by Titian and Girolami Dente, Madonna and Little one with St Mary Magdalene (undated, on reserve). The identical stand additionally provided Torment of St Anthony, after Schongauer and relationship from the seventeenth century, exhibiting every kind 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 might 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 supplier Stuart Lochhead can also be exhibiting, alongside the portrait, a sculpture of the crucified Christ regarded as modelled by Michelangelo. Whereas nothing would induce Lochhead to disclose the worth 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 might 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 huge names on view, together with a small however engaging Van Gogh with Rau gallery, Nonetheless Life with Two Sacks and a Bottle (1884) ($4.4m); the New Orleans supplier was additionally exhibiting Cézanne’s Fleurs dans un Vase avec Partition Musicale (1874-76).
One part, Showcase, options newer galleries and Raphael Durazzo introduced abstracts by Hilla Rebay, a good friend and confidante of Solomon Guggenheim and first director of the Museum of Non-Goal Artwork, which grew to become 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 ladies Impressionists, however who’s now being rediscovered, from the stand of Galerie Pauline Pavec.
The artworks at Tefaf are all the time marvellous and alongside all method of kunstkammer work are some uncommon finds. Amongst these are a Sixteenth-century ceramic waterspout adorned with Ottoman flowers from the Dome of the Rock (Sam Fogg, round €500,000); a Northern Tune pottery jar stuffed to bursting with bronze cash, provided by Vanderven Oriental Artwork; an Inuit baby’s jacket manufactured from seal intestines at Patrick Mestdagh; and an nearly life-size anatomical mannequin of a lady from the early seventeenth century, provided by Kugel or “low seven figures in euros”, stated a gallery director.
This yr 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 will likely be on view within the chateau between June and October.
On view on the honest was an beautiful e book of hours made for Catherine of Aragon, round 1509, exhibiting her and her husband Henry VIII. Curiously, based on Dr Sara Oberg Stradal of the exhibitor, Jörn Günter Uncommon Books, whereas manuscripts are usually a male buy, ladies are sometimes patrons of books of hours. And he or she famous that they’ve one consumer who’s a lady aged in her 30s from Japanese Europe.
Frank Prazan of Applicat Prazan was upbeat on the primary day, having offered three works together with Serge Poliakoff’s engaging summary Composition en bleu (round 1953) for €1.3m. “The honest has began nicely for me, and I’ve curiosity in different works. I’m optimistic,” he stated.
