Art Fair Report: Maastricht 2010 - TEFAF

April 2010

In mid-March every year, tens of thousands of collectors from around the globe descend on Maastricht, the Netherlands' oldest city, for the ten day long European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF). Encompassing everything from Classical and Asian antiquities, jewellery and firearms to Old Master paintings/drawings to modern and contemporary art, TEFAF is widely regarded as the greatest event of its kind. Now, in its twenty-third year, Maastricht 2010 showcased a record of 263 dealers from 17 countries and offered $2.7 billion worth of unique and important art.

What distinguishes Maastricht from other art fairs is the calibre of exhibitors and the fair's rigorous vetting process. The vetting locks dealers out for a day and a half while experts scrutinize each item in every booth, a process which sees thousands of objects challenged and hundreds of objects removed from the fair. Invariably, works are deemed questionable in terms of authenticity, attribution, dating, label wording and in 2009 a $375,000 painting by Gustave Courbet was reckoned "not fair worthy" and "without possibility of appeal" on account of failing artistic quality.

Ultimately, it is TEFAF's meticulous investigation of all its offers that give collectors the confidence to spend millions of dollars.

Maastricht 2010 opened one month after the great success of Sotheby's and Christie's major opening auctions for the year and stood to be the year's first real test of the art market outside of the auction rooms, where collectors had been pushing up prices. Market analysts believed that the buoyancy of auctions would translate to the fairs - "What is often seen at auction is the clarification of the state of the private market. The strength of these sales added to the sense of the continued growth of the collector's confidence in the public and private arenas". This optimistic sentiment was observed by collectors and significant sales across all sections of the fair indicated a renewed confidence in the private sector.

In the twenty three year history of the fair, big sales usually do not pick up momentum until the second or third day, "The objects are more expensive here, so it takes a little bit longer for people to think about it," said one private dealer. In the expanded modern and contemporary section of the fair, where  a complete Andy Warhol "Marilyn Monroe", 10-part portfolio of screen prints from an edition of 250 published in 1967 sold for $1.5 million, to a Northern European collector.

A 1982 Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, depicting a black figure and title 'Bust Atlas 2' joined the Warhol in the over $1 million mark, selling for $2.4 million. Interestingly, Damien Hirst's This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home, a glass and steel vitrine housing a cut-in-half pig, with a price tag of $12 million failed to sell.

The Old Master market got a sizable lift at TEFAF, as a European collector bought Lucas Cranach the Elder's David and Bathsheba, from 1534, for around €5.3 million ($7.3 million) and was believed to be the most expensive work to sell.

At the same time, design sales at the fair were booming. A Munich dealer staged a breathtaking exhibition of the real rarities of Renaissance and Baroque cutlery. Sourced from Venice in 1600, a fork and knife set with handles fashioned as coral twigs sold for an incredible price of €78,000 to an American museum. The most expensive design ever sold at TEFAF was achieved by a Diego Giacometti 1972 floor lamp in plaster, which went for a staggering €500,000.

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