Maastricht TEFAF dealer reports strong sales

Despite global turmoil and worsening conflict in the Middle East, dealers surveyed art news At their booth at the TEFAF art fair in Maastricht, they were delighted when they were willing to discuss the sale. Even as one dealer observed, collectors from the Middle East may not be able to travel. (Another quipped, “There’s email. There’s WhatsApp.”) The show must go on.

“The talent of the collectors is extraordinary,” said first-time exhibitor Alison Jacques from London, noting that the number of international visitors exceeded her expectations. By the end of the first day Thursday, dealers had pieces by Eileen Agar and Sheila Hicks on display. Also for sale are works by Pacita Abad, Ana Mendieta and Dorothea Tanning.

Jorn Günther, a rare book dealer from Basel who has been exhibiting at TEFAF for 30 years, said this year was his best year yet.

The show is characterized by luxuriously wide aisles and spacious booths, which have been built by dealers to an incredibly ambitious level, this year there are 277 dealers from 24 countries. To keep greedy visitors at the convention center, the show features a one-Michelin-star seafood restaurant, Italian bar, pastry bar, sushi bar, fresh food bar, oyster bar and, of course, a mobile oyster shucker with a variety of condiments.

Indeed, the items on sale here are huge, such as a magnificent 18th-century Neapolitan nursery with dozens of richly dressed miniature figures in Porcini, Naples, and a huge 18th-century sleigh at Rudigier Fine Art in London. But dollar for dollar, inch for inch, some of the most valuable and best pieces in the current edition may be the smallest.

For example, the highlight of the stand of the Brimo de Laroussilhe gallery in Paris are three incredible gold and enamel plaques made for Anne of France based on caricatures by Jean Hey, an artist active in Lyon and Moulins. 1480–1505. Measuring less than two inches tall each, they provide an incredible visual feast, with the vessel in this case being a magnifying glass that hangs nearby, allowing visitors to take a closer look at the richly detailed works, which illustrate traditional scenes such as the Annunciation and the Nativity, each with several figures and fully rendered backgrounds. (The illustration here showing the Holy Spirit incarnate as twins of Jesus is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.)

Each comes in a double-sided box, with both sides visible, because, dear reader, these little items were originally pages from a book. The gallery declined to disclose information about the sales, but did note that this reporter, visiting from New York, was able to see what the gallery had for sale domestically during a tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its medieval branch, the Cloisters, uptown.

Another small thing that packs a big punch and a hefty price tag – which would be at home in the cloister if the dealer sold it to another buyer – Jon Gunther from Basel: Liechtenstein health takunitasa Latin illuminated manuscript from Padua, published around 1997. 1450. This six-inch-tall book contains something very rare: scenes from the everyday lives of ordinary people, not the rich. This book is a medical manual and guide to healthy living, originally written in Arabic and later translated into Latin. There are 130 small paintings by four different artists, which makes the $5 million price tag seem quite reasonable, about $38,500 apiece.

By the afternoon of the second day of the show, the gallery had listed several manuscripts, with prices ranging from $200,000 to $5 million. “The oldest objects on the stand are manuscripts from the 10th century,” Günther said. “It makes you think: How many revolutions, how many plagues, how many wars have happened during this time? It makes you slow down. Contemporary art is all about speed. We have slow art, which speaks to values ​​- like the dedication and patience it takes to create these things.” Nearby, an American museum director was showing a work on the stand to her fellow curators and the institution’s administrators for consideration for purchase.

Another work that one can imagine in the cloister, besides the famous Unicorn Tapestry, is De Wit Fine Tapestries from Mechelen, Belgium: a 14-foot-wide example with a very rich extant pigment, depicting tree of life (Probably mid-sixteenth century) Between two imaginary coats of arms. Director Pierre Metz told me this means it was most likely not created to celebrate a marriage between two actual families, so its purpose is unclear. The work was still for sale Friday afternoon with a price tag of $300,000. Another large tapestry with bright colors was placed in the gallery. Pan’s Offerings Metz said the museum (circa 1690-1730) was a public institution, but he was not authorized to reveal its name.

The products at the exhibition cover various fields from ancient times to contemporary times, and dealers in all fields have achieved success.

Sold by David Aaron Gallery, London Medea SteleThe gallery reports that it is a Greek sculpture from the Attica region (375-350 BC) that will be taken to “a major American museum” on its first day. The asking price is £450,000 (approximately $600,000). This is a rare work commemorating a young woman of marriageable age who died before her marriage.

At least three paintings at the fair that were confiscated by the Nazis have recently been returned to their rightful owners. By the end of the second day, at least two had found buyers.

Agnews (founded in London 1817) sells Willem Drost’s Man wearing red beret with feathers (1654) The Leiden Collection, founded by French-American precious metals magnate Thomas S. Kaplan and his wife Daphne Recanati Kaplan, focuses on 17th-century artists, particularly Rembrandt and his circle in Leiden and Amsterdam. (The collection recently sold a Rembrandt painting at Sotheby’s in New York for $17.8 million, the highest price ever paid for a Rembrandt painting, with proceeds going to Panthera, the wildcat conservation charity he co-founded.)

Drost’s works are rare; he died of pneumonia in Venice at the age of 25. This oil painting had been in the collections of famous Dutch and German collectors in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as four generations of the Rothschild banking family. It was later stolen by the Nazis and housed in the Führer Museum in Linz, Austria. Photos show monument staff retrieving this work along with Vermeer’s painting art. The Rothschilds later sold it to Jacqui Safra of another banking dynasty.

Meanwhile, Rosenberg & Co. (New York) also sold on its first day a work confiscated by the Third Reich, an 1881 gouache on paper by Camille Pissarro, women in route racing, also known as Rue de Village avec trois paysannes causant à gauche (Valhermeil). Dealer Paul Rosenberg purchased the work in 1939; the Nazis confiscated it the following year and it was returned to the Rosenberg family in 2025. The Rosenberg Gallery declined to disclose the price, but data from art market analysis firm ARTDAI shows that since 2015, three Pissarro gouaches of similar size from the 1880s have sold for as much as $1.6 million.

Another recently returned work is a canvas by the 17th-century Flemish artist Jacob Jordaens from the collection of Pelgrims de Bigard from near Brussels, but the dealer would not disclose information about the sale.

At a show that spans 7,000 years of human creativity, some dealers are finding success by blending old and new products. Marianne Boesky of New York sold 11 of 12 paintings by contemporary artist Thalita Hamaoui at the end of the first day for prices ranging from $16,000 to $60,000. The gallery showcases lush, surreal paintings showing overgrown landscapes in an alluring array of layers and colors, alongside works by former Surrealist artist Odilon Redon.

So did the Parisian dealer Kamel Mennour, who sold a painting of a woman reading by Félix Vallotton the next day. Leathers (1912), which he displayed next to a bronze sculpture by Camille Henrot, its shape echoing the curves of the reader. Mennour sold the painting to an institution for 350,000 euros (approximately $400,000), a Giacometti work sold for 700,000 euros (approximately $800,000), and a Ugo Rodinon sold to a private collector for 350,000 euros (approximately $400,000). The king of his stall is Francis Picabia, static (circa 1929), with a price tag of €4.5 million (approximately US$5.1 million). Despite some very serious conversations, its fate remained uncertain as of Friday afternoon.

“But I’m fighting with myself,” said Mennour, who bought the painting outright and may keep it.

“But when you run a gallery,” he said, “you have bills to pay.”