The entrance of the Fair (past edition)
Image by Pieter de Vries Texel
Deux Femmes by Paul Gauguin, 1902, oil on canvas, 74 x 64.5 cm
Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John by Sandro Botticelli(c1493-5). Tempera on panel, 47.6 x 38.1cms
TEFAF Maastricht 2010 includes masterpieces by Gauguin and Boticelli
TEFAF Maastricht, the world’s most influential art and antiques fair, opens at the MECC (Maastricht, southern Netherlands) from 12-21 March 2010. Highlights include ‘Deux Femmes’ by Paul Gauguin and the ‘Rockefeller Madonna’ by Sandro Botticelli
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Source: TEFAF Maastricht
Exhibitors at TEFAF will show some 30,000 works of art and antiques, including paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, furniture, classical antiquities, illuminated manuscripts, jewellery, textiles, porcelain, glass, silver, design and other works of art. Every era from classical antiquity to the 21st century will be represented.
Gauguin’s ‘Deux Femmes’
One of Paul Gauguin’s last major works is to be offered for sale by the leading international art dealer Dickinson for a price in the region of €18 million (US$26 million) at TEFAF Maastricht. Gauguin created this painting during a final burst of creativity following his retreat to a remote Pacific island as far away from civilisation as possible. The rare late Tahitian Gauguin will be one of the highlights of The European Fine Art Fair reinforcing its reputation for offering the very best works of art for sale. The picture was painted in 1902, a year before Gauguin’s death, while he was living on Hiva Oa in the remote Marquesas Islands 740 miles from Tahiti. Unhappy with what he saw as the increasingly European colonial atmosphere on the main Tahitian islands, he landed at Atuona, the capital of Hiva Oa, in September 1901.
Botticelli’s ‘Rockefeller Madonna’
An exquisitely beautiful study of the young Saint John kneeling in prayer before the Madonna and the infant Christ by Sandro Botticelli is to be offered for sale by the leading international art dealers Dickinson for a price in the region of US$15 million (€11.1 million) at TEFAF Maastricht. The painting is known to have been exhibited by Lord Duveen, one of the greatest art dealers of the 20th century, in New York in 1925 and by 1931 was in the collection of John D. Rockefeller Jnr. It remained with the wealthy Rockefeller dynasty for half a century, which is why it is sometimes referred to as the Rockefeller Madonna. In more recent years it has been part of a private collection in New York.
Other highlights
The Courtenay Compendium, a long-lost collection of historical tracts last seen in the 16th century which contains the first substantial manuscript relating to the traveller Marco Polo to come onto the market for almost a hundred years. It will be offered for sale by Dr Jörn Günther Rare Books from Switzerland for €2.5 million.
The highly important Portrait of George Washington painted in 1822 by the American artist Gilbert Stuart. This picture of the first President of the United States will be brought to TEFAF by first-time exhibitor Hammer Galleries of New York. The price will be €5 million.
A rare Tianhuang seal from the Kangxi period (1662-1722) in China. Superbly carved in the form of a crouching lioness, the 5cms high seal with the name of one of the Emperor’s sons inscribed on the side was made by a master craftsman. It will be exhibited by Littleton & Hennessy Asian Art Ltd of London with an asking price of €550,000.
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