TEFAF celebrates successful year
As TEFAF Maastricht shuts its doors for another year, the fair celebrates welcoming over 71,000 visitors from 60 different nationalities over its ten days.
With 275 dealers taking part in the event, both private and institutional buyers acquired some of the finest works available on the market, with sales reported across all price points and throughout all sections. The event proved once again that it continues to be an important event for museums from around the world, with over 200 visiting.
Patrick van Maris, CEO of TEFAF, comments, “This year’s exhibitors have put on an outstanding display of remarkable objects. To achieve this year on year is not easy: it takes dedication and connoisseurship. Yet again they have excelled themselves and have attracted international collectors from all corners of the globe to Maastricht, it is our job at TEFAF to provide a platform and environment that supports this extraordinary community both today and in the future.”
TEFAF said the tone of the fair was confident, with top-level sales reported throughout, as well as a healthy appetite for mid-market works. Interest was evident in all sections of the Fair, with numerous pieces of cultural and historical importance being sold or reserved by both private and institutional buyers.
Antiquariat Bibermuehle AG Heribert Tenschert finalised an important sale of a 12-volume series of books entitled Historia naturalis, originally created for Emperor Rudolph II of Habsburg between 1596-1610, to a private collector during TEFAF Maastricht, who will gift it on long-term loan to the Rijksmuseum. The series came to market for the first time in 25 year and was sold for a seven-figure sum.
Tomasso Brothers Fine Art confirmed the sale of an extraordinarily important work by the Renaissance master Giambologna (1529-1608). One of the gallery’s highlights at TEFAF Maastricht 2017, it is the earliest recorded work by the artist and the only surviving sculpture that he carved in wood, making it unique in the artist’s oeuvre. The carving was acquired by a new client, an important European private collector, and was priced in the region of €1.5million.
Richard Green reported strong interest in their Old Master offering with three works from the Dutch room on reserve with two US museums while Portrait of King Charles IX of France (1550-1574), by François Clouet (1515-1572) was sold to an important European collector. In addition, Dutch Old Master specialist Bijl – Van Urk BV was delighted to report that Panoramic view with a Medieval Town at the St. Cecilia of Cologne,1660s, by Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712) and Johannes Lingelbach (1622-1674) was sold to The Kremer Collection, and had an asking price of €225,000.
Early sales for Charles Ede Ltd at TEFAF showed that buyers can be as eclectic as the antiquities they purchase. “The magnificent Egypto-Romano bronze basin we exhibited this year sold to a long established and discerning client to for his museum in the south of France. He declared it the best piece in the fair,” says Charles Ede managing director Martin Clist.
That Holy Grail among the art trade, a new young collector, bought a delicately modeled Hellenistic marble head of a Ptolemaic queen and aims to develop a collection. “He told us that Maastricht is the ideal location for young collectors because of the range of pieces being offered by leading dealers in the field,” said Clist.
The gallery also revealed that an established New York collector acquired a sizeable Egyptian bronze Apis bull, while an extremely refined Cycladic head went to a client that the gallery first met when exhibiting at the new TEFAF New York Fall fair.
TEFAF Maastricht ran from 10-19 March 2017.