To a backdrop of plunging US stock markets, an unpredictable US president, volatile geopolitics and incoming stricter rules on imports of some categories of art into Europe, the European Fine Art Fair (Tefaf) certainly faced manifold challenges when it opened in Maastricht on 13 March to VIP visitors (the fair continues until 20 March).
And yet despite these challenges, exhibitors pronounced themselves satisfied by the second day. They had not come with high hopes, but early sales, reserves and interest did much to calm nerves.
As always, they were greatly encouraged by the extraordinary number of museums, trustee groups and curators in attendance, including those from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, Tate, the Hermitage and the Louvre—the full list fills eight pages. Then there were hordes of private collectors such as Christian Levett, who has opened a private museum in the south of France devoted solely to women artists.
Picasso, Les Dormeurs (1964) shown by Landau Fine Art
Courtesy of Tefaf / Landau Fine Art
The fair always offers a feast of works, from the most classic Old Masters to the stunningly offbeat. The most expensive work on offer, apparently, was Picasso’s large and rather chaotic Les Dormeurs (1964) offered for $50m on the stand of Landau Fine Art, which has locations in Montreal and Luzern, Switzerland.
However the talking points of the fair were elsewhere. Trinity Fine Art from London was showing a tender work by Titian and Girolami Dente, Madonna and Child with St Mary Magdalene (undated, on reserve). The same stand also offered Torment of St Anthony, after Schongauer and dating from the 17th century, showing all kinds of winged and clawed monsters baiting the bearded saint. Imported on a temporary licence, the work must go back to Italy where it was found, and can only be kept in that country.
Another temporary import is the astonishing Velázquez, Mother Jerónima de la Fuente (1620), the portrait of a formidable-looking nun who would subsequently travel across the world to found the first convent in the Philippines. She is depicted holding—even brandishing—a bronze crucifix, and the London dealer Stuart Lochhead is also showing, alongside the portrait, a sculpture of the crucified Christ thought to be modelled by Michelangelo. While nothing would induce Lochhead to reveal the price of the Velázquez, the 25cm-high figure is tagged at €1.8m (£1.5m). It is one of two versions originally in a Toledo convent, the other being in the Prado, and so Sophie Richard of the gallery has hopes that it would be exportable from Spain for a foreign buyer, once the papers are completed.
Stuart Lochhead’s stand at Tefaf Maastricht 2025
Photo: Jaron James. Courtesy of Stuart Lochhead
There were other big names on view, including a small but attractive Van Gogh with Rau gallery, Still Life with Two Sacks and a Bottle (1884) ($4.4m); the New Orleans dealer was also showing Cézanne’s Fleurs dans un Vase avec Partition Musicale (1874-76).
One section, Showcase, features newer galleries and Raphael Durazzo presented abstracts by Hilla Rebay, a friend and confidante of Solomon Guggenheim and first director of the Museum of Non-Objective Art, which became the Guggenheim; prices between $15,000 and $200,000. In general there was quite an emphasis on work by female artists, and Levett bought a portrait of Marie Bracquemond (1840-1916), one of the few women Impressionists, but who is now being rediscovered, from the stand of Galerie Pauline Pavec.
The works of art at Tefaf are always marvellous and alongside all manner of kunstkammer work are some unusual finds. Among these are a 16th-century ceramic waterspout decorated with Ottoman flowers from the Dome of the Rock (Sam Fogg, around €500,000); a Northern Song pottery jar filled to bursting with bronze coins, offered by Vanderven Oriental Art; an Inuit child’s jacket made of seal intestines at Patrick Mestdagh; and an almost life-size anatomical model of a woman from the early 17th century, offered by Kugel or “low seven figures in euros”, said a gallery director.
This year the €50,000 Tefaf Restoration Fund went to the Musée Condé in the Chateau de Chantilly for the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, which is being restored and will be on view in the chateau between June and October.
On view at the fair was an exquisite book of hours made for Catherine of Aragon, around 1509, showing her and her husband Henry VIII. Interestingly, according to Dr Sara Oberg Stradal of the exhibitor, Jörn Günter Rare Books, while manuscripts tend to be a male purchase, women are often buyers of books of hours. And she noted that they have one client who is a woman aged in her 30s from Eastern Europe.
Frank Prazan of Applicat Prazan was upbeat on the first day, having sold three works including Serge Poliakoff’s attractive abstract Composition en bleu (around 1953) for €1.3m. “The fair has started well for me, and I have interest in other works. I am optimistic,” he said.
