Hand-drawn by famous French illuminator Jean Picoa and his workshop, the medieval manuscript invisible for 60 years is one of the most spectacular exhibits in the 38th annual edition of the Tefaf Maastricht Fair, previewed by guests invited on Thursday.
“This is world history,” said Dr. Jorn Günser, an illuminated manuscript dealer in Switzerland. It is trim with the young King Henry VIII of England kneeling next to the first angel of his six wives and Catherine.
“You can really get closer to a big medieval figure with manuscript,” one of his staff members involved the book with this image, involving a 1509 book owned and handled by Queen Catherine, saying, “You can really get closer to someone you really are. “Not like a portrait. It's more intimate.”
Katherine was one of the more consequential queens of Tudor England. The failure of Henry and Catherine's marriage to produce an abolition from the surviving male heirs, or from the Pope, led to a division from Henry's Roman Church. The manuscript cost $1.4 million, about $1.6 million.
The European Fine Art Foundation's venerable Dutch event, which will be held until March 20th this year, features 273 exhibitors from 21 countries and is the last major fair dedicated primarily to pre-20th century art and objects. (Tefaf also hosts a small sister fair in New York in May, focusing on modern and contemporary art.) This year's edition faces formidable headwinds. The old master was discontinued along with the private collector. The international art market is in a recession. President Trump's trade war also rattled the markets, beating long-standing relations between the US and Europe.
“This is a challenging time in a broader sense,” said Masimiliano Carette, a partner at Carret & Occhinegro, an old master dealer based in Rome and Turin. “In Trump and the war, everyone is scared of everything.”
“But Tefaf is an event that museums, collectors and dealers want to gather and buy,” Callett said.
During the first hour of the crowded preview, the Italian gallery had no difficulty finding a museum buyer that was still kept secret due to the recently rediscovered panel painting of Christ's “burial” by 16th-century Flemish painter Maelten van Hemskerk. Dealer research shows that this is the original central image of the altarpiece, where side panels are preserved at Worcester Museum in Massachusetts. This expressive Italian-influenced Dutch painting around 1550 was priced at 500,000 euros, or about $544,000.
In recent years, museums, particularly American museums, have become the go-to buyers of Tefaf's high-value masters. The fair also sought to renew its appeal by expanding the number of booths that showcase modern and contemporary art. This year, around 60 dealers were on display, including London's first attendee Richard Saltun.
Salton's singular exhibition of surrealist paintings and paintings by Palestinian-born Lebanese artist Juliana Seraphim (1934-2005) was in harmony with the desire of many museums to reconcile their collections with the works of long-awaited female artists. Seraphim once said she wanted to portray “how important love is to women,” and her gorgeous, enigmatic image is filled with erotic symbolism. The rich layered oil, “Untitled”, was marked 120,000 euros, or about $130,000, and was reserved by the museum.
Despite the Trump administration's crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, American museums continue to focus on expanding works by underrated artists.
James Steward, director of Princeton University Museum of Art, which is set to open a vast new building in October, was one of the directors and curators of several American museums in the TEFAF preview. The steward said he visited the fair for the 16th time. He is always looking for works that bridge the gaps in his personal funded institutions, particularly institutional holdings that span different cultures.
“We have to double down on our core values,” Steward said, responding to concerns about the Trump administration's cultural revisionism. “Variety is burnt into our collection.”
“We have art and objects from five to thousand years of human history from around the world, and we will continue to recalibrate our collections with works and artists that we believe are historically underrated,” he said.
This time, a 16th century Flemish painting of Madonna and a child in a similar Japanese black lacquer frame captures the eyes of the stewards. This rare object, related to the evangelical activities of Japanese Jesuit missionaries, was priced at 336,000 euros, or about $365,000 at the booth at London dealer Jorge Wales.
Several visitors said this year's TEFAF maintains a reputation for offering a wealth of museum quality items, but that the outstanding masterpieces by major names have been less and maintaining outstanding masterwork in the meantime.
“Even though there was a shortage of obvious show stoppers like we've seen in the past years, people were still quietly doing good business and had a very international crowd attended.
Other notable early sales included the mid-17th century “Our Virgin of Self-Portrait Prayer” by Flemish artist Michael Swartz, who worked in Rome for several years. It was sold to the European Museum from a booth at the Geneva-based Salomon Lillian for around 4 million euros, or about $4.3 million. Recent restorations have revealed that the paintings are made in Rome. The artist worked for Camilo Pamphili, a prominent collector who is the innocent X nephew of the Pope.
Tefaf organizers said that a group of customers from more than 62 museums participated in the preview. Among them was a cohort of about 30 patrons from Boston museums, including Penny Vinnik, a Boston and Florida-based contemporary art collector.
“I usually go to Art Basel,” Vinnik said. “The museum encouraged me to come to Maastricht. I hadn't bought anything in a year, but I didn't expect to fall in love with anything.”
But after placing the reserve in a massive, fun 1961 Hanshoffmann abstract painting from New York Gallery Yarres Art, she said, as she was asking for a private seven-figure amount. That makes me seem optimistic. ”
