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New York Old Master prints and drawings dealer David Tunick recently tallied up exactly how much time he has spent attending the TEFAF art fair at the Maastricht Exhibition and Congress Centre in the Netherlands, about two hours from Amsterdam. With a vaunted selection and vetting process, TEFAF is known as one of the top events of its kind worldwide.
“I’m just beginning my 60th year in the art business and my 26th year at TEFAF for two weeks or more, so I’ve spent a full year of my life here,” Tunick said, adding, “It’s always a pleasure and a privilege.”
Established in 1988 and organized by the European Fine Art Foundation (which also began organizing a New York edition in 2016), the fair this year features 276 dealers from 24 countries, offering treasures from over 7,000 years of art history. Unlike most fairs, TEFAF Maastricht stretches out over a full six days, and dealers point out that attendance doesn’t wane. The massive floral displays and the oyster shuckers at the VIP previews are legendary, and top museums’ trustees are always in attendance.
But while the fair has been in the works, some collectors may have found their plans disrupted when, late last month, the US launched its latest war of choice in Iran. Dealers differ on whether the war will hurt the fair in any way. New York Old Master dealer Nicholas Hall suggested in an email that it will make “little to no difference. Middle Eastern buying in the paintings field at any rate has always been patchy at best.” Ben Evans of Landau Fine Art, founded in 1987 in Montreal and now also in Meggen, Switzerland, was fairly sanguine, saying, “We have certainly been very worried about the conflict, but there remains an enormous appetite.”
Bill Rau, owner and CEO of M. S. Rau, of New Orleans, was a bit more apprehensive. “I think where it’s going to hurt the fair is not the mood or whether people are feeling comfortable selling something,” he said, speaking by phone from Maastricht last week, as Iran targeted the UAE with drone strikes and missiles.
“It’s going to hurt in the logistics,” he continued. “The Dubai airport is one of the busiest in the world. It’s closed. Any Middle Eastern person, if they are not already in Europe, is not coming. But also, if someone comes from Japan they might fly through Dubai or Abu Dhabi. We sold a Monet last year to a gentleman from Dubai and I don’t know if he’s coming or not. I don’t think Louvre Abu Dhabi is going to come.”
Galerie Marcilhac’s display at TEFAF Maastricht 2025.
TEFAF head of fairs Will Korner noted in an emailed statement, “The international art market is accustomed to navigating periods of global uncertainty and has historically shown resilience even during moments of geopolitical tension. Of course, we recognise the seriousness of the situation and the wider uncertainty it creates. At this stage, however, we remain confident and have not seen any clear indication that market activity has slowed.”
For the record, he added, “A group from Louvre Abu Dhabi is confirmed to attend the fair.” And, as of Tuesday, the Dubai Airport has reopened.
They’ll have plenty to see when they do. A few days before the fair’s public opening, Tunick spoke excitedly to me about some of the works he would offer at the event, which he compared to “a museum for sale.”
“We’re showing a Modigliani that I have kept track of since I first saw it on the cover of a Sotheby’s auction catalogue in 1972,” he said. “I couldn’t have afforded it then but I recently managed to get together with the owners and told them, ‘You might have something that I’ve wanted for 50 years.’” The price for the work is in the middle seven figures.
He’s also bringing a Degas self-portrait from 1857 that is a mix of drypoint, etching, and hand inking. “While far from the most expensive thing in the stand,” he said, “it is one of the finest works of art we’ve ever had.” That piece is priced in the middle six figures.
Edgar Degas, Autoportrait (Self-Portrait), 1857, on offer from David Tunick, New York.
Hall, the New York Old Master dealer, heaped praise on the fair. “TEFAF is a must because it is without doubt the most important fair for pre-1914 paintings, drawings, sculpture, furniture and the decorative arts in the world,” he told ARTnews in an email. “Dealers set aside their most interesting finds over the year for this event. The presentation is interesting and imaginative as dealers are all competing for the collectors’ attention and the visual spectacle is in and of itself worth the trip.”
Highlights from Hall’s offerings include pieces by French genre painter Louis-Léopold Boilly (a canvas unseen for over a century); Baroque French landscapist Claude Lorrain; 19th-century German Realist painter Adolph Menzel; and Baroque painter Salvator Rosa (the artist’s only known work on copper). Exceptionally striking is Bernardo Daddi’s Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints Peter and Paul, Saint Zenobius, a Bishop Saint and Six Angels (1335–37), which the dealer calls “a unique survival from 14th-century Florence.” At just two and a half feet high, the gold-framed piece likely evoked an ecclesiastical setting in a private home. The panels surrounding the central scene were likely painted by Giovanni Gaddi, the Master of the Misericordia. At $6 million, it is one of the highest-priced works known to be on offer. (Some dealers share prices with the foundation, others do not.)
Joan Miro, Femme Revant de L’Evasion (1945), on offer from Landau Fine Art, of Montreal, Canada, and Meggen, Switzerland.
Anna Janson
Evans, of Landau Fine Art, a longtime exhibitor, told ARTnews by phone that “TEFAF remains, to us, the greatest art fair in the world, with the richest quality of exceptional art from the widest period of human history and expression. It offers the greatest concentration of leading galleries, dealers, and experts in such various fields as any antiquities fair you can attend.”
Landau is bringing paintings and sculptures by Italian artist Marino Marini; paintings and sculptures by Spanish artist Joan Miró; and work from American Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, among other material.
Pierre Auguste Renoir. Le chapeau aux cerises (ca. 1884), on offer from M.S. Rau.
The Louisiana dealer also touts works by French Impressionists Berthe Morisot and Claude Monet, but says he’s perhaps most excited about a Fauvist Henri Matisse painting. “We unveiled it a week ago to our email list,” he said, “and we we got requests to borrow it from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Van Gogh Museum, and the Musée d’Orsay.” But it’s not all seven-figure items at Rau; the gallery has offerings priced as low as $20,000.
M. S. Rau, of New Orleans, is showing for only the third year, though owner and CEO Bill Rau has long attended. He is offering what he calls an “exceptionally important” piece by French Impressionist painter Pierre Auguste Renoir. Le chapeau aux cerises (ca. 1884) measures less than two feet high and shows Renoir’s future wife, Aline Charigot, who appears in many of his other works, wearing the titular hat adorned with cherries. “She was his favorite muse, and this was done at the high period of his talent,” said Rau. It’s tagged at just shy of $9.9 million. According to data from art analytics company ARTDAI, ponly a dozen Renoir works have sold for more than that.
