Running from March 10-18, the much-lauded international fair features more than 200 dealers who offer fine art, antiques and design. Here is an early look at stand-out pieces brought by five dealers standing at the fair.
Two's company: a pair of oils on brass
Old Master dealer Derek Johns is bringing this pair of Hubert Robert oils on brass to TEFAF Maastricht this year. Johns said brass is a “rare support medium indeed for Old Masters”. Les Deux Amies and La Jeune Dessinatrice Robert (1733-1808) are to be included in the catalogue critique of the oil paintings of Hubert Robert being prepared at The Wildenstein Institute, Paris. They are being offered at in excess of €500,000 at Maastricht. The pair were in the Soultzener Collection, circa 1860 and subsequently owned by Baron Richard d'Eprémesnil. They sold at Sotheby's, London, in March 1971 and have been in a private American collection and a private Swiss collection.
Starry night: a rare Dutch atlas
Daniel Crouch Rare Books brings a celestial atlas by Andreas Cellarius (c.1596-1665). Published in 1661, the Harmonia Macrocosmia was published in Amsterdam. It contains copper plate prints depicting the world systems of Ptolemy, Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. At the end are star maps of classical and other constellations.
It is the seventh volume of the Chronologica started by Gerard Mercator who wanted to gather together everything about the then-known cosmos, geography and history of the earth. Only two of the various engravers involved in the project are known: Frederik Hendrik van den Hove and Johannes van Loon. All the designs of the classical consetllations were taken from those created by Jan Pieterszoon Saenredam.
It the only celestial atlas published during the Golden Age of Dutch cartography. It is a folio measuring 20 x 13 ½ in (50 x 33.5cm) and is offered for £350,000.
Because it's there: a Cézanne watercolour
Throughout nearly the final three decades of his life, Paul Cézanne painted Mont Sainte-Victoire repeatedly in oil and watercolour.
This 11 x 17 ½in (28 x 44.5cm) watercolour, offered by Dickinson, was completed c.1890 by which time the artist had moved away from his earlier repoussoir compositions, letting the mountain stand on its own. Characteristic too is the prominent white of the paper, showing through against the pastel washes that define the sky and trees.
It has a provenance back to the dealer Ambroise Vollard, who represented the artist from 1895. It passed into the collection of sibling collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein and from the latter to the Parisian dealer Paul Rosenberg. It was most recently acquired by a Swiss collector at Christie’s sale of the collection of Benjamin Edward Bensinger in 1975.
It is offered now for a price in the region of $4.5m.
Quite continental: a ruby and diamond necklace
An Art Deco necklace of Burmese rubies and diamonds is among the top picks being taken to TEFAF Maastricht by jewellery dealer SJ Phillips. The necklace, of Indian inspiration was designed and made by the French jewellery house of Mauboussin in Paris in 1930. The clasp of the necklace is signed ‘Mauboussin Paris’ and it is accompanied by Certificate of Authenticity from Mauboussin.
Between 1928 and 1931 Mauboussin hosted three exhibitions in their showrooms on the Rue de Choiseul, focused on the emerald, ruby and diamond. This necklace featured in the second Mauboussin exhibition, described as a love letter to the Burmese ruby. The asking price for the necklace is in the region of US$5.5m.
Loving Vincent: a rare van Gogh still life
Connaught Brown brings a still life by Vincent van Gogh. Still Life with Bottles and a Cowrie Shell dates from the artist’s period at the Dutch town of Nuenen, where he lived for two years with his parents, and is one of a group of 13 still life paintings created in the autumn of 1884. All but three of these pictures are now in museums.
The London gallery offers this work for a price in the region of €3.5m.
It is offered with a provenance that can be traced back to van Gogh’s brother Theo, from whom it was acquired in 1904 by Henricus Petrus Bremmer, one of the few early admirers of van Gogh's. Bremmer later helped the author of the artist’s first catalogue raisonné.
After then passing through several Belgian art collections, it came up at auction at Sotheby's London in 1968 and has since remained in private hands.
