Updated Classic

Maastricht—Change is afoot for TEFAF Maastricht, whose 21st edition, held March 7 through 16 in its namesake Dutch city, gathers 220 dealers from 15 countries. Showcase, a program spotlighting seven emerging dealers, makes its debut and expands the fair’s coverage to include two hitherto neglected fields: vintage photography, courtesy of Serge Plantureux, of Paris, and Japanese weapons and armor, from the Kyoto gallery of Robert Winter, who is bringing a late 18th-century black-lacquered nerikawa suit of armor priced at $130,000.

While Winter is TEFAF’s premier exhibitor from Japan, Prague’s Jiri Svestka, who is showing work by Czech abstract painter František Kupka alongside that of Eastern European contemporary artists, is the first to represent an ex-Communist country. Another Showcase gallerist, Patric Didier Claes—an African-art specialist from Brussels—is bringing a selection of pieces that includes a ceremonial Bangwa mask from Cameroon.

London-based newcomer Adrian Sassoon, best known as a specialist in 18th-century porcelain, is featuring recent ceramics, glass and metalwork priced between £1,000 and £30,000 ($2,000–59,000)—a response to TEFAF’s desire to beef up its contemporary offerings. Among his artists are Londoners Kate Malone and Rachael Woodman, who handcraft glazed stoneware and cut and cold-work blown glass, respectively.

Old Master paintings remain a TEFAF forte. Eye-catching works include Jan Brueghel the Elder’s Aeneas and the Sibyl, 1593, at London’s Johnny van Haeften for £2.9 million ($5.7 million), and Domenico Maroli’s The Philosopher Eucleides of Megara, circa 1655, which depicts its subject changing into women’s clothing to disguise himself from political enemies before entering Athens to hear Socrates speak. Kooky cross-dressing aside, “there is no other known painting in which the figures take up barely one-third of the surface and leave room for such an impressive still life—with its untidy muddle of books, manuscripts and scientific instruments,” notes dealer Maurizio Canesso, of Paris, who recently identified the work from the 17th-century estate inventory of Venetian arts patron Giovanni Nani.

Among other venerable highlights is a 17th-century Delft plate from the Het Moriaenshooft workshop, painted with the figure of a Chinese dignitary in colored robes, which Aronson Antiquairs of Amsterdam is selling for €395,000 ($584,000). Hamburg’s Dr. Jörn Günther, meanwhile, is offering the oldest document still in private hands. Published in Germany around 1505, it charts the route Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama took to India and is priced at €560,000 ($828,000). With its globe-girdling scope, TEFAF is set for billowing sales.

"Updated Classic" originally appeared in the March 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's March 2008 Table of Contents.