Image: Loraine Bodewes
Important sales at TEFAF Maastricht 2010
The overall results at TEFAF Maastricht 2010 confirms the belief that the art market has remained robust during the economic crisis. The visitor figures for the 2010 Fair will be around 72,500, representing an increase of circa 7%.
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March 21st, 2010, source: TEFAF
Museum purchases at TEFAF
The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC bought the newly discovered Winter Landscape with Skaters painted by the Dutch artist Adam van Breen in 1611 from John Mitchell Fine Paintings of London for €910,000. The oil painting is one of the earliest known works by Van Breen. Sales at the private view by the sculpture specialists Robert Bowman Gallery of London included a white marble and bronze bust of Othello by the 19th century Italian Pietro Calvi. It was bought by a private collector for exhibition at The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC for a six figure sum. Other purchases by museums included two pieces bought by German and American institutions from Julius Böhler, the Starnberg-based specialist in early European sculpture and works of art, and Renaissance cutlery sold to an American museum by Kunstkammer Georg Laue of Munich. Antiquities dealer Rupert Wace Ancient Art from London sold a Roman bronze statuette of Aphrodite wearing a silver diadem from the 1st century AD to a French private museum.
Private sales at the Fair
In the Paintings, Drawings & Prints section Koetser Gallery of Zurich sold Head of a Bearded Man by Sir Peter Paul Rubens to a private collector for “under €1 million” while Bernheimer-Colnaghi of Munich and London found buyers for four paintings early in the private view. They included Le Petit Messager by the French painter Marguerite Gérard (1761–1837), which had an asking price of €700,000, and The Toilet of Venus by Nicolas Colombel (1644-1717), a recent discovery with an asking price of €550,000. “This is a very encouraging start and confirms TEFAF’s position as the premier art fair,” said Konrad Bernheimer, owner of Bernheimer-Colnaghi.
Modern and contemporary works also performed well. Van de Weghe Fine Art New York had an extremely successful start to the Fair selling three mobiles by Alexander Calder, Security Guard, a life-size bronze by Duane Hanson, and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Busted Atlas 2, 1982. Hauser & Wirth from Zurich, London and New York sold an untitled 1960 painting by Eva Hesse, for which €550,000 had been asked, while Dieter Roth’s huge Paravant mit Schuerze was sold for €350,000. Galerie Thomas of Munich sold La route peu rassurante by Chaim Soutine to a southern European private buyer for approximately €500,000 and Abstract Figure (Relief H) by Oskar Schlemmer to a European private collector for €85,000.
Asian works of art and ethnografica proved popular and Ben Janssens Oriental Art of London sold more than 30 pieces to collectors at the private view. These included a limestone torso of a Buddha, dating from 6th century China, for a price in the region of €90,000 and a jade Mughal-style perfumer made in China in the 18th century for about €80,000. Vanderven & Vanderven Oriental Art from ‘s-Hertogenbosch sold a large pottery figure of a Lokapala, a guardian in Buddhist mythology. Collectors from France, America and Belgium paid between €30,000 and €100,000 for four wooden Igbo statues from Nigeria on the stand of Bernard de Grunne Tribal Fine Arts of Brussels. London antiquities dealer Charles Ede Ltd sold a Fayum mummy portrait on wood depicting a wealthy woman wearing pearl earrings and two necklaces. This rare and beautiful Roman piece painted in Egypt in the 2nd century AD was sold to a collector at the private view for a price in the region of €200,000.
In the new TEFAF on Paper section Galerie Johannes Faber from Vienna had a strong start to the Fair selling three important photographs to private collectors. Among these Erwin Blumenfeld’s 1938 vintage silver print Nude in the Mirror had an asking price of €38,000 and William-Eugene Smith’s 1948 gelatine silver print Walk to Paradise Garden, New York carried a price tag of €28,000. E.H Ariëns-Kappers from Amsterdam sold Le Café Concert, a portfolio of 22 lithographs by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Henri Gabriël Ibels while Day & Faber of London had an early success selling the 17th century Dutch artist Samuel van Hoogstraten’s drawing St John the Baptist in Prison Receives Christ’s Answer for a five figure sum.
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