The Wall Street Journal’s Margaret Struder gives an impressive preview of what the dealers are bringing to TEFAF this year. Yet even this litany is only a small sample of the 30,000 objects from 260 dealers who live in 16 different countries:
This year, many more visitors are expected to come from China, says Tefaf Chairman Ben Janssens. “There’s a lot of Asian art at the fair. We have 22 Asian art dealers. But it is not only that attracting the Chinese. There is also growing Chinese interest in Impressionist paintings and in jewelry,” Mr. Janssens notes. He also expects more collectors from South America, where awareness of what the fair has to offer is increasing, particularly in the new international collector areas of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.
- Johnny Van Haeften will have an eye-catcher in “Mankind’s Eternal Dilemma—the Choice between Vice and Virtue” (1633) by Dutch master Frans Francken the Younger. (price: $14 million).
- Hague gallery A. Aardewerk: a very rare collection of 17th-18th century table silver created in Maastricht . “This collection has not been seen in public for 33 years,” says dealer Emiel Aardewerk.
- Les Enluminures gallery of Paris will bring “The Katherina Hours,” a devotional book illuminated in Tours, France, between 1485 and 1490, with 30 miniature paintings by the Master of Jean Charpentier (price: $575,000). (price: $250,000).
- Dickinson gallery will be the Impressionist painting “Woman Picking Flowers” (circa 1874) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (price: $15 million).
- Lowell Libson gallery will show a group of notable landscapes by Thomas Gainsborough, including “Wooded Landscape with Horseman” (circa 1762), a delicate watercolor priced at around €350,000
- Rupert Wace Ancient Art of London will have one of the oldest works of art[…] in a 7,000-year-old Greek female idol (price: €1.2 million).
- Anthony J.P. Meyer always has one of the most exotic stands, with his generous displays of Oceanic art. This year, Mr. Meyer has published a 40-page catalog for Tefaf with works on offer from the Pacific islands. The cover pictures a fascinating, squatting figure holding a small ancestor head in both hands from the Solomon Islands. The late-19th-early-20th-century figure adorned a canoe’s prow (priced in the six figures).
- Cohen & Cohen probably will get second looks. The large, crouching Chinese porcelain leopards with bared fangs ready for the kill from 1720 are priced at £3.5 million. If your taste is for gentler animals, an exceedingly rare pair of spotted, seated deer from around 1750 is priced at £300,000.
The Art World’s Yearly Pilgrimage (Wall Street Journal)
