Dhe Maastricht art fair TEFAF is back in full force and quality. After the pandemic phase, which was followed by a cut and a postponement of dates last year, around 270 art dealers are now again available in the nine traditional March days with an offer that no other art fair in the world can offer. The walk through the hall is like a breathtaking excursion to art from all over the world and culture from many eras. From antiquities to old masters to design that almost creates itself with the help of AI. With this offer, the TEFAF confidently stands out from a trade fair landscape that has geared its program largely to modern and newest art with the argument that old art is becoming increasingly difficult.
Sure, the old master market is something for connoisseurs and enthusiasts. But they found what they were looking for in Maastricht: During the preview, Porcini from Naples put a red dot for goods that had already been sold next to Luca Giordano’s “Dream of Don Ramiro” and a portrait of a gentleman attributed to Domenico Tiepolo at Miriam Di Penta, which was one of the ten stands for newer ones galleries recorded. Tiepolo’s father Giambattista has a gorgeous painting of frolicking Pulcinelli hanging at Robilant + Voena (London, Milan, New York), a gallery that spans its expertise from the 15th century to artifacts of the present day.
TEFAF Maastricht 2023
:
Confidently Outstanding
As always, works from this TEFAF are going to museums – or come from there, such as the sculpture of St. George on horseback from Tyrol, which the Böhler family of art dealers loaned with parts of their collection to the Bavarian National Museum in Munich and is now offering for 750,000 euros. Or Oskar Kokoschka’s watercolor of an expressively dancing girl in a blue dress, which adorned the Neue Galerie in New York as a loan from Serge Sabarsky’s former possession, before it can now be purchased from Wienerroither & Kohlbacher (Vienna) for 1.2 million euros. At the stand you hear that Ronald Lauder is in Maastricht; there was initially no talk of purchasing intentions regarding the watercolor.
It’s always worth talking to dealers. Most of them are only too happy to pass on their knowledge, especially their discoveries. Georg Laue from Munich, for example, reports in front of his grandiose Rothschild oliphant, a hunting horn carved from ivory with intertwined animals around 1645, that thanks to an archive find, Johann Michael Egner from Strasbourg could be identified as its forgotten master. In one fell swoop, the creator of various stylistically comparable pieces in museums was also identified. During the first hours of the fair, Georg Laue sold a chandelier turned from bone around 1600 to a German museum.
Established names of modernity
Frides Laméris tells us that the conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt often bought old glasses from her in Amsterdam, which she can now offer again from his estate, and she points to a wine glass with a lion on a stem, which a Dutch blower brilliantly copied from Venetian glass art. Was Harnoncourt also enthusiastic about old musical instruments, such as those offered in abundance by Jean Michel Renard, an expert in this special field? His stand is an experience in itself, no different than that of Delalande from Paris, who presents nautical equipment, magnificent globes and old nautical charts in a kind of ship’s cabin. At the Botticelli Gallery in Florence, a falling Lucifer, winged and with a devil’s head, comes as a surprise behind several 16th-century monastery doors, a piece of Neapolitan church theater from the Baroque era (70,000 euros).
Agnews Works on Paper (Brussels) cultivates the rather sparsely represented 19th century not only with William Turner’s large watercolor “Splügen Pass” (1.6 million), but also with the masterpiece of a dramatic sketch “Thunderstorm in the Moonlight”, which the Norwegian romantic Peder Balke smashed the paper with a broad brush, black paint and fury (120,000). The wide range of classical modernism relies entirely on established names. One of the few exceptions is Ludorff’s (Düsseldorf) special show on Lotte Laserstein, who is still less well known in the international context.
As a precaution, well-known names are also relied on in contemporary art: at Schönewald, red apples await by Karin Kneffel (275,000), at the Galleria Continua a chandelier with a skull and crossbones made of black Murano glass dangles by Ai Weiwei, and around Daniel Buren’s rarely seen painting from the sixties Kamel Mennour from Paris, the artist can design a stand with his typical stripes and mirrors (from 550,000). Among the ten first-time exhibitors is Templon, another top dog on the Parisian contemporary scene.
A newcomer from London was Prahlad Bubbar with Indian and Islamic art; as a debut, he also shows Man Ray’s 1930 portraits of the Maharaja of Indore. Last year’s robbery, which is still under investigation, did not deter any of the jewelry dealers from taking part again, apart from the one who was injured. So your trade fair business seems to be going really well. But the security measures have been tightened: women are now asked to only have very small handbags with them.
TEFAF, at the MECC Maastricht, until March 19, admission 45 euros