Introduction
From 14th to 19th March 2026, TEFAF Maastricht brought together 277 galleries from 24 countries for an edition marked by a series of notable rediscoveries and attributions. Among the highlights were recently rediscovered works by Lavinia Fontana, Artemisia Gentileschi and Berthe Morisot, confirming a growing market attention to women artists, who had long been overlooked or undervalued. Rare antiquities of exceptional provenance, ranging from a granite vase commissioned by Emperor Nero to a seventeenth-century Mughal automaton, drew significant interest from scholars and collectors alike, while the presentation of the so-called ‘de Ganay Salvator Mundi’ by Agnews reignited one of the most enduring debates in Renaissance attribution. Beyond the exhibition stands, the fair hosted its TEFAF Summit and Art Business Conference, reflecting an art world increasingly engaged with questions of cultural policy, economic impact, and institutional responsibility.
Objects of wonder: Rare and singular antiquities
Stuart Lochhead Sculpture presented one of the most remarkable antiquities in recent years: the Vase of Emperor Nero. Originally commissioned for the Domus Transitoria, Nero’s early imperial palace on the Palatine Hill, the vase had been carved from a single monumental block of Egyptian granite, the material prized for its durability and prestige, likely worked in Alexandria before being transported to Rome. Nero’s vase was discovered around 1721 in the so-called ‘Baths of Augustus’, a misnomer for the Nymphaeum of the emperor’s Domus Transitoria. This was a lavish residence connecting the Palatine Hill to the Esquiline. Following the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, it was expanded into the legendary Domus Aurea. Shortly thereafter, Nero’s vase was acquired by William Ponsonby, the 2nd Earl of Bessborough, for Parkstead House. It was subsequently acquired by Frederick Howard, the 5th Earl of Carlisle, for Castle Howard, where it remained for over two centuries. It was most recently acquired by a U.S. museum for approximately £1.8 million, reflecting its rarity and historical significance (photo 1).
Japanese Arita porcelain ‘birdcage’ vases, crafted circa 1700, represent the pinnacle of luxury export wares in the early eighteenth century. These trumpet-shaped vases are approximately 50 centimetres tall and decorated in vivid underglaze blue with dense, scrolling peonies. Their necks feature four lappet-shaped panels which had been left unglazed during firing. These panels are enhanced with gold urushi lacquer over papier-mâché and are bordered in black. Two of the panels feature a raised swastika lattice pattern, while the other two have a granulated relief accentuated by elephant-head handles. Each vase is surrounded by a cage with gilt-lacquered edges, containing porcelain pheasants perched on a rockery against a painted landscape. Augustus II the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland / Grand Duke of Lithuania, acquired twenty examples for his Japanese Palais in Dresden, reflecting European demand for exotic, technically sophisticated porcelain. With only twenty-three known examples worldwide, including collections in Dresden, Amsterdam, and Oxford, surviving pairs are extraordinarily rare. At the fair, the pair was offered by Vanderven Oriental Art for €750,000 (photo 2).
Kent Antiques presented a seventeenth-century Mughal automaton in the form of an elephant, being ridden by a prince. The carved and painted wooden automaton forms a near life-size elephant mounted on a four-wheeled trolley (180 × 190 × 90 cm). A system of cords and an internal wheel animates the figures: pulling the tail causes the elephant’s ears to flap while the prince’s right arm rises and falls. The princely rider, adorned with a jewelled turban, pearl necklace, and orange jama, recalls conventions of Mughal portraiture, notably Prince Dara Shikoh in the Dara Shikoh Album (British Library, Or. 3129, f. 59v). Royal elephants functioned as established symbols of imperial authority, appearing in warfare, ceremonies, and courtly spectacle. The automaton reflects the Mughal court’s fascination with mechanical curiosities and legends of mechanical elephants in the Indian literature. This rare survival is of considerable art-historical and documentary significance, illustrating the enduring prestige of elephants in Mughal culture (photo 3).
The de Ganay Salvator Mundi: Attribution, authenticity, and the shadow of Leonardo
The recent presentation of the so-called ‘de Ganay Salvator Mundi’ at TEFAF has revived one of the most enduring and contentious debates in Renaissance art scholarship.[1] Offered by London-based Agnews Gallery, this oil-on-walnut panel, dated circa 1505–1515, is generally attributed to the studio of Leonardo da Vinci and is regarded as one of the most accomplished workshop iterations of the celebrated composition (photo 4).
The painting’s provenance is notable for its continuity and clarity, distinguishing it from other, more contested examples. It was exhibited in Paris as early as 1866, afterwards it was owned by Baron de Lareinty, and then passed to the Parisian collector Countess Martine de Béhague in 1902. Subsequently, it entered the possession of the French marquess whose name it bears today. This sustained and well-documented lineage stands in marked contrast to the fragmented history of the Cook version, which commanded a record $450 million at Christie’s in 2017. The de Ganay panel was included in the Louvre’s 2019 Leonardo retrospective, while the Cook canvas was not — a curatorial choice with subtle implications for scholarly validation and authenticity.
Attribution, however, remains deliberately circumspect. In preparation for the Louvre exhibition, curators described the work as the product of a devoted pupil, executed under Leonardo’s supervision, possibly with a direct intervention by the master himself. Infrared reflectography revealed a perforated preparatory cardboard used to transfer the composition, a practice consistent with known Leonardesque workshop methods. The painting’s iconography further aligns it with Leonardo’s intellectual and theological universe. A distinctive omega-shaped fold in the red drapery has been interpreted as a subtle reference to Christ as the last saviour, evoking the eschatological resonance of the final letter of the Greek alphabet.
Rediscovered and reassessed: Women artists claim a more evident presence
Trinity Fine Art presented a significant rediscovery: Christ Driving the Traders from the Temple (1580) by Lavinia Fontana (1552–1614). Previously unknown to scholars, this signed and dated work, inscribed in Roman characters on an overturned footstool in the foreground, offers valuable new insight into the artist’s early career. Painted when Fontana was not yet thirty, it ranks among the most ambitious achievements of her youth. The composition demonstrates an unusual and confident engagement with the work of Michelangelo, who explored the same subject in drawings around 1540. The dramatic poses and complex foreshortening evoke his influence, marking a rare instance in which Fontana openly references to Michelangelo. At the same time, her broader stylistic formation reflects the enduring legacy of Correggio and Raphael. Recent conservation has restored the painting’s vibrant palette, revealing striking contrasts, from the brilliant blue and iridescent pink of Christ’s garments to the pistachio green worn by a money changer, underscoring Fontana’s sensitivity to contemporary Florentine colouristic developments (photo 5).
The Porcini Gallery presented two notable works by early modern women painters. Elisabetta Sirani (1638–1665), born in Bologna, was the daughter of the painter and art dealer Giovanni Andrea Sirani and trained in his studio, where she mastered drawing, painting, and etching. Her work was profoundly shaped by the classicism of Guido Reni. In Judith with the Head of Holofernes, she depicts the biblical heroine Judith after defeating the Assyrian general Holofernes. The composition balances compositional clarity with dramatic illumination, with fluid brushwork and rich colour which anticipates the maturity of her style. Despite her brief career, Sirani became one of Bologna’s most celebrated artists and founded a workshop where she trained several women painters (photo 6).
Diana Di Rosa (1602–1643), active in Naples, emerged from a family of artists and was associated with the circle of Massimo Stanzione. Known as ‘Annella di Massimo’, she developed a naturalistic style shaped by the artistic climate of post-Caravaggesque Naples. The Sacrifice of Noah depicts the biblical patriarch Noah offering thanks to God after the Flood, a theme emphasizing reconciliation and covenant. The painting reflects both Stanzione’s influence and Di Rosa’s distinctive sensitivity to expressive faces and narrative clarity (photo 7).
Presented by Jean-François Heim and Lullo & Pampoulides, these two recently discovered works by Artemisia Gentileschi provide a compelling insight into the artist’s mature style, emerging at a time of renewed critical and market interest. In February 2026, a self-portrait by Gentileschi, one of only five known self-portraits by the artist, established a new auction record at Christie’s New York, selling for $5.69 million. The Self-Portrait as Cleopatra (c. 1620, oil on canvas), first identified in 2015 and subsequently exhibited at Palazzo Braschi, Rome (2016–17) and Palazzo Ducale, Genoa (2023–24), exemplifies Gentileschi’s sustained engagement with assertive female subjectivity. By conflating self-representation with the tragic dignity and authority of the Ptolemaic queen, the work achieves a rare synthesis of psychological insight and virtuoso naturalism (photo 8). Equally significant is the Penitent Magdalene (c. 1620–1622, oil on copper), reappearing after three decades in a private collection. Executed on the luminous surface of copper, an exceptional support within Gentileschi’s production, the painting demonstrates commanding refinement in its modelling of flesh and compressed spatial intimacy (photo 9).
Berthe Morisot’s 1892 oil-on-canvas Jeune fille au chien (Young Girl with a Dog), presented by the M.S. Rau gallery and offered for £3.3 million, portrays Jeanne Fourmanoir, one of the artist’s favoured models, within the luminous garden of Morisot’s residence at rue de Villejust in Paris. The painting was created during a pivotal year in the artist’s life, marked both by her first solo retrospective at the prestigious Boussod, Valadon et Cie gallery and by the death of her husband and devoted supporter, Eugène Manet. In this canvas, Morisot’s late style is articulated through softened brushwork, hazy atmospheric effects and delicate colour harmonies that dissolve the boundary between figure and surrounding foliage. The painting also holds a notable exhibition history. Following Morisot’s death in 1895, it was included in the important 1896 posthumous exhibition held at the Durand-Ruel Gallery. Organised by several of her closest colleagues, including Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and the poet Stéphane Mallarmé, the exhibition served as a major tribute to Morisot’s artistic legacy and affirmed her central role within the history of Impressionism (photo 10).
At Richard Saltoun Gallery, whose programme has long foregrounded the work and historical visibility of women artists, Olga de Amaral’s Hojarasca barbas de piedra (1973) exemplifies the radical expansion of textile practice that emerged in the late twentieth century. Born in 1932, Amaral is widely regarded as one of the foremost pioneers of fibre sculpture, developing a distinctive language that challenges the conventional boundaries between craft, sculpture, and architecture. Since the 1960s, she has experimented with materials such as linen, cotton, horsehair, gesso, gold leaf, and palladium, employing techniques including weaving, knotting, and braiding to produce complex three-dimensional structures. Deeply informed by Colombian cultural traditions and landscapes, her work contributes significantly to post-war Latin American abstraction. The shimmering gold and silver surfaces of many tapestries evoke sacred spaces, recalling both Andean ritual environments and Byzantine mosaics. Through these luminous, tactile works, Amaral transforms textiles into contemplative media, inviting viewers to experience the act of viewing as a sensory and spiritual engagement (photo 11).
The Focus Section marks its third anniversary, Showcase its eighteenth
The Focus Section at TEFAF Maastricht 2026 brought together a distinguished group of international galleries, each presenting an in-depth exploration of a single artist or artistic body of work. Galerie Thomas Schulte (Germany) presented iconic photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe, while TAFETA (United Kingdom) highlighted the ceramics of Ladi Kwali, the pioneering Nigerian modernist whose work has been featured in major museum exhibitions. Demisch Danant (United States) exhibited works by the French realist Antoine Vollon (photo 12), and Van den Bruinhorst (Netherlands) dedicated its stand at the fair to the influential twentieth century Dutch De Stijl designer and architect Gerrit Rietveld. Ceysson & Bénétière (France, Luxembourg, Japan) focused on Patrick Saytour, a founding figure of the Supports Surfaces movement, while Alexis Lartigue (France) offered a focused selection of the vibrant abstract paintings of Sam Francis (photo 13). Rounding out the section, Galerie Maria Wettergren (France) presented the work of Margrethe Odgaard, the Danish textile and colour designer known for her explorations of material and nuances.
The Aluminium Side/Table Chair from the 1950s is among Rietveld’s most spectacular yet least-known designs. Only two identical examples are known: one was acquired by the Centraal Museum Utrecht in 2012, making the piece presented at TEFAF the only example available on the market. The chair’s origins date to World War II, when Rietveld and his son Wim handcrafted an aluminium prototype, pressing a decorative pattern of holes into the sheet to reinforce it while giving it a strikingly futuristic look. Though the Red and Blue Chair and the Schröder House remain Rietveld’s most celebrated achievements, this rare aluminium piece shows a lesser-known dimension of his work, inventive, material-conscious, and ahead of its time. (photo 14).
A genuine launch pad for a new generation of dealers since 2008, this year’s Showcase section brings together nine galleries that reflect the eclectic spirit of the fair: AGO Projects (Mexico, photo 15), Erik Bijzet Sculpture and Works of Art (Netherlands), Galerie Boquet (France), Dries Criel (Belgium), DEVALS (France), Van Herck–Eykelberg (Belgium), Roberti Fine Art (United Kingdom), Torres Nieto Fine Arts (Germany), and Trias Art Experts (Germany). The Antwerp-based gallery Van Herck–Eykelberg presents a two-voice dialogue between the painters Léon Spilliaert and James Ensor, accompanied by a catalogue published for the occasion. The presentation sheds light on a little-known moment in Belgian modernity, highlighting the coexistence of two distinct artistic sensibilities and visual approaches.
Knowledge, Policy, and Market: TEFAF’s Programme of Talks, Summit, and Conference
A curated programme of conferences, events, and seminars was also offered, including Collector Talks, dedicated to institutional collecting, and TEFAF Meet the Experts, where exhibitors presented and discussed significant artworks and research.
The third edition of the TEFAF Summit, organized in collaboration with the Netherlands Commission for UNESCO and supported by AXA XL, was also on the calendar. Scheduled for 16 March 2026, the summit focused on the theme Beyond Economic Impact: Rethinking Culture in Public Policy, examining the social, cultural, and health-related value of the arts and their growing relevance in public policy—going, as the title suggests, beyond purely economic considerations.
At the summit, the Deloitte report The Economic Impact of TEFAF on Maastricht was unveiled, highlighting the significant economic and cultural influence of TEFAF Maastricht on the city and the wider Limburg region. The total national economic impact generated by TEFAF was €86.4 million, including €37.9 million in direct economic impact in Maastricht, €34 million in indirect economic activity generated through supply-chain effects and €5.6 million in estimated promotional value through international media exposure. The study shows that the fair generates substantial activity through international visitors, tourism, and art market transactions, while supporting local employment and enhancing regional visibility. Led by Adriano Picinati di Torcello, the report emphasizes that TEFAF’s value goes beyond financial metrics, highlighting its role in fostering cultural exchange, strengthening Maastricht’s global standing in the art world, and illustrating how major cultural events can drive both economic development and cultural diplomacy.
Held on 13 March 2026 at MECC Maastricht, the fourth edition of the Art Business Conference brought together an international roster of speakers spanning museum leadership, legal practice, data analytics, and financial services. Chaired by Georgina Adam, journalist and art market expert, the half-day event welcomed keynote speaker Manuel Rabaté, Director of the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Rachel Pownall of Maastricht University hosted a dedicated panel, contributing her scholarly expertise in art market economics to the programme. Pownall also supervises Maastricht University’s Executive Master in Cultural Leadership (EMCL), a programme developed in collaboration with London’s Royal Academy of Arts. The EMCL awards a full Master of Arts degree, delivered through six intensive modules over two years and complemented by independent assignments and research projects.
Conclusion
TEFAF Maastricht 2026 confirmed that the fair remains a privileged meeting point between the market and scholarship. The works presented this year, including rediscovered canvases by female artists, objects of extraordinary rarity and provenance, and a workshop painting whose authorship may never be fully resolved, invite reconsideration of established hierarchies and canonical blind spots. Meanwhile, the conferences and summits indicated a market that is becoming more aware of its broader cultural and social responsibilities and is looking beyond purely transaction metrics towards a broader understanding of the value of art.
- Roman vase commissioned by Emperor Nero, c. 64 (Stuart Lochhead Sculpture).
- Japanese birdcage vases, c. 1700 (Vanderven Oriental Art).
- Mughal automaton in the form of an elephant, being ridden by a prince, 17th century (Kent Antiques).
- Studio of Leonardo da Vinci, de Ganay Salvator Mundi, c. 1505–1515 (Agnews Gallery).
- Lavinia Fontana, Christ driving the traders from the temple, 1580 (Trinity Fine Art).
- Elisabetta Sirani, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, 1656 (Porcini Gallery).
- Diana Di Rosa, The Sacrifice of Noah, c. 1625–1630 (Porcini Gallery).
- Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-portrait as Cleopatra, c. 1620 (Jean-François Heim).
- Artemisia Gentileschi, Penitent Magdalene, c. 1620–1622 (Lullo Pampoulides).
- Berthe Morisot, Jeune fille au chien, 1892 (M.S. Rau).
- Olga de Amaral, Hojarasca barbas de piedra, 1973 (Richard Saltoun Gallery).
- Antoine Vollon, Nature Morte aux Pivoines et Griottes, c. 1890 (Demisch Danant).
- Sam Francis, Untitled, 1983 (Alexis Lartigue).
- Gerrit Rietveld, Aluminium Side/Table Chair, 1950s (Galerie Van den Bruinhorst).
- AGO Projects.
[1] https://www.countrylife.co.uk/culture/art-exhibitions/the-most-distinguished-copy-of-salvator-mundi-is-now-on-offer-could-it-also-be-the-truest-to-leonardo-da-vincis-vision; https://news.artnet.com/market/salvator-mundi-tefaf-2753839; https://www.finestresullarte.info/arte-antica/salvator-mundi-de-ganay-bottega-leonardo-protagonista-tefaf-2026
Author:
Monika Osvald
monika.osvald@gmail.com
