The Mysteries of Maastricht

The nine-day-long European fine art fair (TEFAF), which opened in Maastricht on March 7, provided the most astonishing evidence yet that the art market is governed by rules that set it apart from any other sector of the economy. In the morning of the private-viewing day that traditionally precedes the start of the most important art fair in the world, professionals could not quite conceal their unease. The worldwide turbulence in the equity markets was getting worse, and the drastic credit squeeze particularly worried dealers selling high-priced paintings. The most naturally optimistic among them never imagined what would happen in the next few hours: Not only was the crowd that poured in bigger than ever, but it quickly became clear that buyers had never been quite so bullish at the top echelons of the market.

The experience of one London dealer, Johnny Van Haeften, whose connoisseurship in Dutch and Flemish painting makes him the world leader in the field, revealed to the full the galvanizing effect that the fair had on the visitors’ eagerness to spend despite an extremely difficult economic environment. At the private viewing alone, Van Haeften sold five paintings. Four of these, when displayed in his otherwise highly successful winter show in London last December, had failed to find takers even though the fully illustrated catalogue distributed across the world had increased their exposure. In the sedate atmosphere of a gallery, however, no quick decisions need to be taken, while at Maastricht even a beginner would have realized that with all the well-heeled collectors and museum officials walking around, this was neither the place nor the moment to shilly-shally over the acquisition of a coveted work.

The first of Van Haeften’s pictures to go was Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s Massacre of the Innocents. Inspired by the compositions on the subject done by the artist’s father, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, it is one of no fewer than 14 versions recorded by Klaus Ertz in his catalogue raisonné of Pieter the Younger’s oeuvre. It is, however, the most accomplished of these. Demand for both Brueghels, father and son, is huge. At €2 million ($3 million), the painting went in no time.

The four other pictures the dealer sold that evening were all rarities for one reason or another. Jan van Goyen’s view of the Haarlemer Meer, painted in the 1640s and priced at €1.1 million ($1.7 million), is his only seascape where lightning pierces the darkness of a tempestuous sky over agitated waters.

For art historians, the ultimate rarity that night was Jan Brueghel the Elder’s Aeneas and the Sibyl in the Underworld, a Brueghelian variation on hell using a Greek mythological theme. Done in extraordinarily fine detail on copper, the impeccably preserved picture is dated 1593, which makes it the earliest dated work by the artist. Brueghel painted it at age 25 during his stay in Italy, from 1589 to 1596—hence its very Italianate style. Undaunted by the picture’s sexual imagery with sadistic undertones, a collector picked it up for €3.9 million ($5.8  million).

Ottmar Elliger the Elder’s 1666 still life of fruits inhabited by butterflies and a grasshopper, rendered in starkly contrasting light and shadow, was also highly unusual. Elliger’s work is seldom seen in the market. With its sculptural handling and an atmosphere of deep forest mystery that harks back to the 16th-century Danube school, the painting is typical of German art, whose originality at that period has yet to be acknowledged. At €165,000 ($255,000), it was a giveaway.

The last of Van Haeften’s private-viewing sales was another gem: Anthonie De Lorme’s 1667 view of the interior of the Laurenskerk (Saint Lawrence Church), in Rotterdam, showing the tomb of Admiral Witte Corneliszoon de With. Signed and dated, the picture was unpublished until the dealer reproduced it on the cover of his London catalogue. The frontal view of the tomb is unusual, and the play of sunlight on the off-white wall is marvelous. The asking price of €2 million ($3 million), while rather high for De Lorme, was low for a masterpiece made more exciting by its iconography, which raises an intriguing historical riddle: A Turk wearing the distinctive Ottoman turban stands talking to a Dutch gentleman in front of the funerary bas relief of the admiral, who is shown reclining under the figures of Neptune and Mars. Does this symbolize a warning from the Dutch to the Turkish enemy, then entrenched in most of southeastern Europe and constantly challenging the western European navies in the Mediterranean?