Date: Fri 10-Apr-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: JUDYC

Quick Words:

Maastricht

Full Text:

Maastricht Madness

w/cuts

By Rebecca Coleman

MAASTRICHT, THE NETHERLANDS -- Every March, the sleepy little town of

Maastricht, sandwiched between Belgium and Germany at the narrow southeast

base of the Netherlands, receives a powerful jolt from the international art

world -- the annual European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF).

Other European fairs may be in more glamorous cities and locales -- the Paris

Biennale, or London's Grosvenor House Fair -- but TEFAF Maastricht, now in its

11th year, has become the acknowledged leader of the pack, each year setting

new records for attendance and increased sales.

This year's fair, held at the cavernous MECC Exhibition and Convention Center,

ran from March 7 to 15 and boasted a record 170 exhibitors. That was more than

three times the 1997 number. Of those 170, 133 came from outside the

Netherlands. The record crowd of 67,000 visitors was perhaps too much of a

good thing. Aisles and booths were jammed, making it difficult to maneuver

through the fair in the hour following the 10 am opening.

Although there are an increasing number of American collectors and curators

who make the pilgrimage to Maastricht, TEFAF is characterized by the number of

French, Belgian and German clients who fly in on private planes for opening

night, shop and fly home, and see no reason to go to any other fair in the

world.

Americans who are touchy about cigarette smoke and accustomed to smoke-free

environments at most American shows are in for a rude shock at TEFAF, as most

Europeans live to puff away. At TEFAF they are quite free to do so anywhere

they please. The last time I saw so much cigarette, pipe and cigar smoke in

one room was around a roulette wheel in Vegas some 15 years ago!

Paintings & Drawings

Maastricht started life as an Old Master pictures fair in 1975, and Old

Masters -- particularly Dutch and Flemish -- remain a priority. Indeed, so

rich is the selection that one's eyeballs are likely to become numb after

walking through this section and viewing, in booth after booth, yet another

floral-and-fruit still life, or happy peasant merrymakers, or the umpteenth

dune landscape or seascape.

Pictures that emerged from the assortment included Godfried Schalken's small,

highly finished portrait of "Venus and Cupid" reposing at Newhouse Galleries,

Inc, of New York. London dealer Johnny van Haeften offered a chic little panel

of a turbanned black man popping out of a stone bull's-eye window by the

little-known and rare Leiden artist Bartolomaus Maton, $450,000.

A rollicking oval panel of "The Battle Between Carnival and Lent" by Jan

Miense Molenaer sold for $145,000 at Hall & Knight of New York and London. One

of prettiest still lifes was a panel by Bartholomaus van der Ast of a rare

seashell used as a vase for a small bouquet of flowers. Otto Naumann of New

York sold the word for an undisclosed sum.

Piero Corsini of New York and Monaco got his show off to a cheerful start by

selling his copper panel by the Seventeenth Century Italian master Guercino of

"The Rest on the Flight into Egypt." The panel sold before the doors of the

fair opened, for a low six-figure sum to a fellow exhibitor. Corsini had

snapped it up at Christie's East less than two months before for just under

$17,000.

In a situation recalling the classic I Love Lucy episode of "Lucy and Ethel

Buy Identical Dresses," two dealers brought identical autograph panels by the

Seventeenth Century German master Hans Rottenhammer depicting "The Virgin and

Child Enthroned with Saints John The Evangelist and Francis." Johnny van

Haeften's was priced at $410,000, while Eckart Lingenauber of Paris and

Dusseldorf sold his for $130,000.

Niftiest pair of the fair was Axel Vervoordt's "Still Life with Lobster and

Silver-Mounted Porcelain Ewer" by Seventeenth Century master Pieter Gerritsz

van Roestraten. The painting came as a set with the very ewer depicted. The

Belgian dealer, who wisely refused to part the items, sold painting and ewer

to a European private collector for $800,000.

Nineteenth and Twentieth Century art was well-represented. As usual, most

pictures by Nineteenth Century Dutch masters sold to Dutch collectors.

Kunstgalerij Albricht's of Velp, The Netherlands, sold "Back to the Stable," a

collaboration by Marinus Koekkokoek (1807-1868) and Eugene Verboeckhoven

(1798-1881), for Dfl 250,000. London dealer MacConnal-Mason parted with with

works by Cornelis Springer, Andreas Schelfout, and Barend Koekkoek.

In general, the bigger and more important artists of the Nineteenth and

Twentieth Centuries were seen in fewer numbers, though Waddington Galleries

Ltd of London sold a 1939 Picasso and a 1959 "Bird" sculpture by Henry Moore

for an undisclosed sum. Ivo Bouwman of The Hague traded four of 12 pictures by

Marc Chagall (including "Le Profil du Peintre" for Dfl 400,000 each). Galerie

Brusberg, Berlin, sold Rene Magritte's "La Magie Noir" to an Italian private

collector for approximately DM 1 million.

The most successful contemporary dealer was undoubtedly Collectie Drs Loek

Brons BV of Amsterdam, which featured well-done erotic photo-realist pictures

by contemporary Dutch artists. A typical work by J.H. Moseman, perhaps the

best, was a reclining nude accessorized with a steel chain and pair of short

black leather boots. The painting sold for Dfl 115,000. Prudes may snigger,

but Bron's booth had completely sold out by mid-week.

Works of Art

One of the nice things about TEFAF Maastricht is the opportunity it gives

smaller specialist European dealers who would probably never make the trek to

show in the United States. Particularly intriguing were the stands of

Kunsthandel Glass. The Essen, Germany, dealers' booth consisted entirely of

panels of Northern European painted, gilded and embossed leather wall

coverings from the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, priced from 3,000 to

150,000 DM. Brussels dealer N. Ikodinovic, arrayed Belgian Biedermeier and

Neo-classical furniture, porcelains and decorations. A Sevres Egyptian Revival

tea set of circa 1815 was 380,000 Belgian francs. A Belgian Parian bust of

Marie-Louise, Queen of the Belgians by Cappelmans, circa 1835, cost 500,000

francs.

It is often said that TEFAF caters to a very "MittelEuropean" taste in its

works of art: medieval to Baroque bronzes and ivories, illuminated manuscripts

and German Baroque furniture. Its hard to imagine a typical American audience

responding to some of this precious material, it being distinctly out of

fashion on these shores.

A number of superlative German sculptures were found at Julius Bohler of

Munich. They included "A Page Holding an Armorial Shield of the Dukes of

Saxony," a polychromed hornstone figure by Renaissance master Hans Daucher,

dating to circa 1520; and an imposing Mannerist bronze fountain figure of a

river god by Benedikt Wurzelbauer.

Ironically, another leading exhibitor with exactly the same sort of taste was

the Blumka Gallery. The New York dealer featured a million dollar white marble

relief of a nude bust of "Venus" by Sixteenth-Century Venetian master Tullio

Lombardo.

Among the illuminated manuscripts sold by Sam Fogg of London was an

extraordinary Ethiopian example in very fresh condition. A private collector

acquired it for "in excess of $100,000."

In the antiquities arena, Royal-Athena Galleries of New York sold a large

Greek black-figure amphora by the `Affecter' Painter. The circa 530-520, BC,

piece was $265,000. It was unusual for an American dealer to admit making such

a sale, as the Dutch import Value Added Tax of 17.5 percent led many non-Dutch

exhibitors to circumvent the law by "reserving" items at TEFAF, then making

the actual sales once they returned home.

Jewelry

This clever way of avoiding the Dutch tax system might not go over well with

TEFAF's notable jewelry exhibitors, many of whom have clients apt to treat

their sweethearts with some pretty bauble or two (as Ms Monroe says, "Get that

ice or else no dice!"). Buccellati, Cartier and Harry Winston all had dazzling

displays of necklaces, bracelets and rings ablaze with diamonds and richly

colored stones. Most inventive were the creations of Hemmerle of Munich, which

featured bracelets and pins of black-brushed iron, set with large diamonds and

other gems. Prices were on request.