MAASTRICHT
2017
For three decades, TEFAF Maastricht in the Netherlands has been the world’s pre-eminent fair for art and antiques. Celebrating its 30th anniversary, this year’s exhibit was as vibrant and packed as ever. Dealers with specialties including tribal art, precious jewels, antiquities, Old Masters, modern, and contemporary art were upbeat about sales well into the first official opening day.
This year’s edition featured 275 dealers specializing in works ranging from distant antiquity to the 21st century. The ‘Old Master’ pictures, represented by more than 50 specialist dealers, remain the core of TEFAF.
Several dealers said that although curators from American institutions such as the Getty Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston were at the fair in the Netherlands, there appeared to be fewer private collectors. “The driving energy of this market comes from America, but they don’t want to travel to Europe more than they need to,” said Edmondo di Robilant, a partner of Robilant & Voena.
Reiterating the observation by other exhibitors that the Tefaf 2017 crowd was dominated by middle-aged European visitors, London dealer Richard Nagy echoed “It seems a lot more local this year”. With few affluent Americans, Asians and Russians attending, sales were slow for some of the dealers.
Yet the scale, diversity and quality of the 10-day fair continue to impress. The London and Leeds sculpture dealers Tomasso Brothers sold a signed and dated 1551 lime-wood statuette of Julius Caesar that is the earliest recorded work by Giambologna. Priced at €1.5 million, it was bought by a Belgian collector.
Among the most-viewed objects in the fair was a 300-year-old Dutch doll house, priced at €1.75m by the Haarlem dealer John Endlich Antiquaris. There is no question that this masterpiece was a serious show-off piece. It was designed to impress, with its sumptuous wall coverings, exotic woods and its collection of tiny Chinese porcelain vases, as well as 200 perfectly formed silver miniatures of everything from bird cages to a child’s toy cannon. But this genuine feast for the eyes is no child’s toy: houses such as this were made for the wives of wealthy merchants. Filled with goods from far-flung places sourced by Dutch traders, doll’s houses from this period could cost as much as an actual home on one of Amsterdam’s priciest streets. This stunning work of art was bought by an American collector who plans to lend it to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
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