Going Dutch: Emerging trends at TEFAF Maastricht

Des O'Sullivan reports on emerging trends at TEFAF Maastricht

Head of a Peasant Woman with a White Cap by Van Gogh was sold by New Orleans-based MS Raufor several million euro at TEFAF.

Major institutional sales, seven-figure sales and a growth in international private collectors were notched up in Maastricht this month. Over eight days nearly 50,000 visitors flocked to The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) to see 7000 years of art history displayed by 270 exhibitors from 22 countries across ancient art, antique furniture, paintings, modern and contemporary art and design and works on paper.

With 300 museum directors and 650 curators attending the emerging trends noted were juxtaposing the old and the new and huge interest in female artists, cultural heritage and preservation. Displays of ancient art on contemporary furniture and delicate porcelain contemporary flowers on 17th-century Delftware fragments sold to private collectors for six-figure sums. 

The Rijksmuseum acquired the only signed painting by Gesina ter Borch (1631-1690). The asking price was €4.5 million for Van Gogh's Head of A Peasant Woman with a White Cap at New Orleans-based based gallery MS Rau, sold for an undisclosed sum. Koopman, which sold the personal seal of Lord Nelson to a private collector, reported that clients were aggressively chasing the top objects. 

This 17th-century Safavid Mirror was acquired from Sao Roque by the Aga Khan Foundation in Toronto.

The Aga Khan Foundation in Toronto acquired a 17th-century Safavid mirror for €200,000. Against a background of multiple seven-figure sales an insiders collecting guide drew specific attention to objects priced at under €20,000. This is just a flavour from a fair which showed the international market to be in a state of rude good health.