TEFAF New York Fall Opens To Strong Attendance And Robust Sales

The second edition of TEFAF New York Fall opened to the public on Saturday, October 28, 2017, in the historic Park Avenue Armory for vigorous sales across a wide range of categories and significant dealers. Leading members of the international community to collect works of art and institutional representatives around the world visited the Fair in the first two days of their work, acquiring works for both private and public collections.

This year’s Fair, which runs through Wednesday, November 1, features 95 of the world’s preeminent art and antique dealers and presents museum-quality fine and decorative art from antiquity to 1920 under the roof of the Armory’s Drill Hall. In addition to the returning dealers, the Fair welcomed 12 new participants representing a range of periods and genres. Sales were reported throughout the Fair, from the opening minutes until the Fair closed at 9 pm.

Only moments after the doors of the Armory opened, several important works were sold—a trend that continued throughout the first two days. Highlights include:

• A tapestry depicting the story of Gombaut and Macée (Flemish, Bruges, ca. 1600 -35), sold by Mullany, London specialists in Haute Epoque fine art, to the Musea Brugge, for an undisclosed sum. 

• Vanitas, a magnificent example of Baroque painting by Spanish master Andrés de Leito (documented, Segovia and Madrid, between 1656 and 1663) from Colnaghi (UK; Spain, stand 7), attracted the attention of a museum within the Fair’s first hour, with an asking price of seven figures. This painting, previously unpublished, is a magnificent addition to the small but extraordinary group of works of this type by the enigmatic artist, widely recognized as some of the most beautiful works created in 17th-century Madrid. Previously, only four paintings by de Leito on the theme were known. 

• Svend Hammershøi’s (1873-1948) View of Nørregade, Copenhagen (Danish, 1926), sold by Jack Kilgore & Co., Inc. (The USA, stand 77). While Hammershøi is perhaps best known as a ceramicist and designer, he was also an accomplished painter and focused heavily on the interplay between nature and architecture—as well as the dim twilight of Scandinavian winter—of which this work is an important example. 
• Edwin Lord Weeks’s (1849-1903) Across the Pool to the Golden Temple of Amritsar (American, ca. 1882-3), sold by Taylor | Graham (The USA, stand 85). In this work, Weeks, one of the most important American Orientalist painters of the 19th century, presents a striking study in light, architecture, and culture, undoubtedly influenced by the artist’s second trip to India in 1886-7, during which he visited Amritsar, the holiest Sikh temple. Weeks later painted another version of the temple, ca. 1890, which is housed in the collection of Brown University. 
In addition to the works for sale, an exhibition of never-before-seen large-scale photographs by contemporary artist Vera Lutter (b.1960), on loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and entitled Painting on Paper: Vera Lutter’s Old Master Photographs, is on view throughout the run of the Fair.