Dealers At TEFAF Maastricht Report Robust Sales

(MENAFN- USA Art News) TEFAF Maastricht Returns as a“Museum for Sale,” With Early Placements From Medieval Manuscripts to Modern Masters

MAASTRICHT - At TEFAF Maastricht, the world's most rarefied fair for art and antiques, the objects can feel less like inventory than like a temporary wing of a great museum. This year's edition has opened amid a tense global backdrop, yet the first days on the floor suggested that collectors and institutions remain willing to commit to works that reward slow looking - from jewel-like medieval pages to 20th-century names with renewed market attention.

“The caliber of collectors is extraordinary,” said London dealer Alison Jacques, a first-time exhibitor who also noted a more international crowd than she anticipated. By the end of the fair's first day on Thursday, Jacques had already placed works by British artist Eileen Agar (1899–1991) and American artist Sheila Hicks (b. 1934). Her stand also includes works by Filipino American artist Pacita Abad (1946–2004), Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta (1948–1985), and American artist Dorothea Tanning (1910–2012), among others.

Across the fair, dealers reported brisk interest in objects whose scale belies their complexity. At Paris gallery Brimo de Laroussilhe, pride of place went to three plaques in enameled gold made for Anne of France after cartoons by the artist Jean Hey, who was active in Lyons and Moulins around 1480–1505. Each plaque measures less than two inches high, and the gallery has provided magnifying glasses so visitors can study the densely rendered scenes - including traditional subjects such as the Annunciation and the Nativity - at close range. The plaques are presented in two-sided cases, with both faces visible, a reminder that these were originally pages from a book.

Another miniature with an outsized price tag appeared at the stand of Basel dealer Jorn Günther Rare Books: the Liechtenstein Tacuinum Sanitatis (ca. 1450), an illuminated Latin manuscript from Padua priced at $5 million. The six-inch-high volume is a medical handbook and guide to healthy living, first written in Arabic and later translated into Latin. Its particular distinction lies in its imagery: scenes of everyday life featuring ordinary people rather than the elite. Inside are 130 small paintings attributed to four different artists.

By mid-afternoon on the fair's second day, the gallery had placed several manuscripts priced from $200,000 up to the $5 million Tacuinum.“The oldest item on the stand is a 10th-century manuscript,” Günther said.“It makes you think: how many revolutions, how many plagues, how many wars, over that time? It slows you down. Contemporary art is all about speed. We have slow art that speaks of values - like the devotion and patience it took to create these things.” Nearby, a U.S. museum curator was seen presenting a work from the stand to her director and the institution's conservators for possible acquisition.

Textiles, too, drew attention for their color and presence. De Wit Fine Tapestries, based in Mechelen, Belgium, brought a 14-foot-wide tapestry with notably rich surviving pigments depicting“A Tree of Life” (probably mid-sixteenth century), positioned between two imaginary coats of arms. Director Pierre Maes said the invented heraldry suggests the work was likely not made to commemorate a marriage between two identifiable families, leaving its original purpose intriguingly open. The tapestry was still available by mid-afternoon Friday, priced at $300,000. Maes also said the gallery had placed another large tapestry with vivid color,“The Offering to the God Pan” (ca. 1690–1730), with a public institution, though he was not at liberty to name the museum.

Taken together, the early activity underscored TEFAF's singular proposition: a fair where the offerings span from the ancient to the contemporary, and where the buying conversation often sounds less like trend-chasing than like collection-building. In Maastricht, the pitch is not speed but endurance - and, for many visitors, that may be precisely the point.

MENAFN13032026005694012507ID1110858586