JÖRG ZUTTER reports from Maastricht’s quality fair uniting the best of classic and contemporary art
Turban Holding an Upturned Roemer c. 1650
Once again this year’s TEFAF, the 39th edition of this ever-evolving fair for fine art in Maastricht (including 277 galleries, showing painting sculpture, applied arts from antiquity to modern and contemporary art as well as design and tribal art), the largest and oldest of its kind, has, thanks to its diversity, quality and professionality, attracted a large audience of collectors, museum professionals, art lovers and culture enthusiasts.
A total of over 50,000 visitors, most of them from Europe and slightly fewer from the USA, Asia and the Middle East, attended the event.
Since its foundation in 1988 initially mainly a fair of Dutch and Flemish art of the 16th and 17th centuries, had increasingly begun to showcase modern art as well as art of the 20th and 21th century, and what is more, it has constantly reinvented itself, grown and become the hallmark of a quality fair uniting old, modern and contemporary art.
With Ice Skating Near Huis te Merwede
All presented artists come to the fore in fascinating displays of the participating Dutch, European and American galleries. Among the leading galleries in the main section hundreds of high quality portraits, genre scenes and, of course, landscapes were offered. For example, Salomon Lilian featured a stunning portrait A Young Man Wearing a Turban Holding an Upturned Roemer possibly painted after 1650 in Rome (Ill. 1) by the idiosyncratic Brussels-born figure painter Michael Sweerts (who tragically died on a missionary expedition in Goya, India, in 1664, at the age of only 46). The asking price of the canvas was €4.5 million; however, for insiders it was interesting to remember that it had been sold at auction by Sotheby’s in November 2025 in Paris slightly above the estimate for €1,5 million.
Similar steep mark-ups are however rather exceptional. However, they are a factor that active collectors have to accept at the fair – they highlight too the fact that works from the secondary market are becoming a slightly a more prominent feature of the fair, possibly reflecting a shortage of works offered by the galleries directly from private collections.
Stagnation
The present situation may also be linked to a certain stagnation in the international art market with an impact on both, the old master and contemporary art market. The current uncertainty is perhaps also reflected in the fact that regular visitors to the fair may come across works they have already seen in Maastricht a year or two earlier; this was the case again, with the successful Dutch dealer Bob Haboltd (Paris, Amsterdam), repeatedly standing out with top-quality works, this year presenting a unique – and, in terms of subject matter, extremely rare – painting by Abraham Hondius, Rocky Landscape with Forge, which was on display two years ago at Kunsthandel P. de Boer (Amsterdam).
Interestingly, De Boer made a splash this year with an exceptional work by the Dordrecht landscape painter Albert Cuyp (and studio) that has only recently been discovered, an outstanding Winterscene with skaters dancing and entertaining crowds of people, including horses, gathered on the ice on a sunny winter’s day next the tower of Huis te Merwede in Dordrecht (€8,5 million, Ill. 2).
Exceptional
In the same section also deserving attention was Bijl-Van Urk, one of the younger gallery holders from Alkmaar, offering a range of unique marine paintings such as Small Ships in Heavy Weather by the Belgian born, and later active in Leiden, Jan Porcellis (€65,000, Ill. 3), and furthermore the exceptional English Galliot with Other Vessels Close to the Shore by Willem van de Velde the Younger from Leiden, who emigrated to London in his forties (€1,8 million, Ill. 4).
Unique was also the Self-Portrait of the most gifted genre and landscape painter Cornelius Poelenburgh from Utrecht (€365.000, Ill. 5) – the work, painted on copper, had been sold in 2021 in London at Sotheby’s for a little less than a third of the sum.
Another exhibitor, participating at the fair from its beginning, and a longstanding promotor of Dutch and Flemish art, David H. Koetser, founding his gallery in Zürich in 1967 continuing a family tradition now in its third generation.
Koetser presented an original selection of works from the Golden Age, including Frans Hals’ Young Woman Holding a Glass, this although he had already exhibited the painting last year (and apparently hadn’t sold it); furthermore a mysterious street scene by an enigmatic precursor to Vermeer, Jacobus Vrel, recently rediscovered (and exhibited in 2023 at the Mauritshuis in Den Haag, Ill. 6). Koetser’s eponymous uncle having bequeathed a magnificent collection of Dutch, Flemish and Italian Old Masters to the Kunsthaus Zurich, piquantly this institution had also been invited to present a few of its icons at this year’s fair, namely an important group of works by the Swiss born sculptor Alberto Giacometti, which unfortunately had been presented at a rather hidden location on the fair’s mezzanine, and so did not receive the attention it deserved.
Preparation
These and other observations concerning the lack of perfect preparation (some visitors even complained that the floral decorations hovering above them were too abundantly irrigated, triggering rain falls onto their heads), tuning, finishing and necessary renewal of the fair, or, to put it another way, the failure to create new elements of surprise and visual excitement is regrettable, and must also be viewed in the context of the recent high turnover of directors (the last one just leaving in December 2025).
In addition to this specialist core section on Dutch art, a real hallmark, the fair stands out for its numerous exhibitors offering a high-quality, cross-genre selection of works, including often exclusively Flemish, Italian, Spanish, and French paintings and sculptures or by setting them against each another.
Rob Smeets (Geneva), who often boasts an exceptionally sophisticated selection and who usually presents his set in a somewhat mysterious manner – that is, in in a somehow shielded booth – was somewhat disappointing this year, as his contribution consisted solely of a remix of last year’s selection, with the exception of two extraordinary terracotta portraits by the Tuscan sculptor Giovanni Gonnelli, depicting gran duke Ferdinand II de’ Medici together with the French aristocrat and cleric François de Clermont-Tonnerre.
Trends
The selection presented at Trinity Fine Art (Milan, London) focused specifically on 16th- and early 17th-century Italian art and included works by Lavinia Fontana, Orazio Gentileschi (Ill.7) and Giuio Cesare Procaccini (the latter two being offered for €6 million and €850,000 respectively).
Were there any fashionable collecting trends to discover? Yes, certainly! The most heavily promoted artist at the fair was Artemisia Gentileschi, of whom a total of three works were for sale, this although some experts claimed that none of them bore either the artist’s authentic brushstrokes or her typical poignant, autobiographical touch: these were presented by: Robilant + Voena (London, Paris, Milan, New York), a Penitent Magdalene of ca. 1626 (€6-7 million, Ill. 8), Lullo Pampulides (London) and Jean-François Heim (Basel).
Other galleries featuring notable Italian painters – artist or with a strong Italian penchant – included: Matthiesen (London), with important works by José de Ribera and Salvator Rosa, Dickinson (London) with a remarkable painting by the Dutch Caravaggist Jan van Bijlert, The Five Sences of c. 1630 (€800.000, Ill. 9) and Benappi (London) featuring captivating paintings by Antonio Tempesta and, above all, Giulio Cesare Procaccini, namely the enchanting Cupid (€600,000, Ill. 10).
Rediscovered
A talking point at the fair was undoubtedly Colnaghi’s booth, where notable canvases by Bartolomeo Cavarozzi, José de Ribera, Diego Velázquez were on offer (price tags,€375,000, €1.3 million, €7 million) and what is more a recently rediscovered masterwork by Lavinia Fontana, Portrait of Isabella Ruini Angelelli with a Lady-in-Waiting of 1592 (offered for €3 million, the work had been sold in 2024 at Van Ham in Cologne for €607,200, Ill. 11, top of page).
Among the other stands featuring interesting works by different north European painters of the 19th and 20th century, were: Åmells (Stockholm) offering an outstanding interior by the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi , Sunshine in The Drawing Room II of 1903 (€5,8 million) or Wildenstein (New York) a romantic portrait against a rosy evening sky , Mme Jules Borreau by Gustave Courbet painted during the artists stay in 1863 in the Saintonge region close to Bordeaux (€4.5 million, Ill. 12), whereas other impressionist and modern painters from Monet to Miro and Picasso were offered in the section of the modern and contemporary art attracting also a large crowd of art lovers and collectors.
Rebirth
About a week later, the fair underwent a sort of original, smaller and more focused rebirth in Paris, in a scaled-down form and limited entirely to the medium paper, at the Salon du Dessin, where 39 galleries specialising in this field (both old and modern art, among them 18 from abroad) gathered once more; some, such as Didier Aaron, Terrades and Benjamin Perronnet, had already been present in Maastricht.
Now in its 34th edition, this leading and unique presentation of thousands of outstanding drawings from the 16th to the 21st century has become a meeting place for enthusiasts and collectors of this medium (and a place where experts and enthusiasts of this art actively exchanging their views), not least because, at the same time, Christie’s (Ill 13), Artcurial and Millon are holding important auctions of old master drawings and paintings, which proved once again this year to be of high quality, full of surprises and accompanied by a resounding success.
Text and images: JÖRG ZUTTER
See also: Sony World Photography Awards Announces 2026 Winners
Post Views: 1,954
