"Cross collecting" may be on everyone's lips right now, says Hidde van Seggelen, director of the Maastricht art fair TEFAF and gallery owner in Hamburg, "but at our fair it's been around for decades." In fact, "The European Fine Arts Fair" is the place for it suitable place.

At the 35th TEFAF, collecting “cross” across the borders of genres, genres and epochs could mean letting yourself be enchanted by the Attic head of a youth from the 5th century BC at the Basel Cahn gallery stand to take this opportunity to discover a studio-fresh abstraction by Larry Poons at Yares Art in New York, because the offer is close by.

Or in a single bunk, at Robilant and Voena (London, Milan, Paris), on a 1433 painted "Miracle of St.

Nicholas” by Bicci di Lorenzo next to a fiery red slit canvas by Lucio Fontana from 1967.

The auction houses have jumped on this bandwagon by shoving works of old masters into the limelight in the modern art segment, thereby spurring on astounding proceeds.

Visitor-friendly, although not slimmed down in the organizers' spirit, this year's TEFAF has lost 40 exhibitors compared to the 2020 edition.

It is also shortening its runtime after it was canceled due to the 2021 pandemic and now had to deviate from its usual March date.

After all, exhibitors like Jonathan Green from London report an increase in online trade with old masters from five to ten percent;

He has mainly concluded deals with new buyers from China, but also from Great Britain.

Question to the provider: Are these collectors with expertise — or pure investors?

At least they would know, so the answer, who to contact.

At the fair, Green offers three village and mythological sceneries by Pieter Bruegel the Younger, brilliantly finely painted,

The fact that the dignified fair for art and antiques cannot be ignored by the imponderables of the present is also shown by the fact that the TEFAF has canceled one of its two annual dates in New York in order to concentrate on classical modernism overseas.

In any case, her heart beats in Maastricht.

The booths also show this with numerous specially produced catalogues.

Almost 200 experts monitor the strict selection criteria, who examine each plant before it opens, sometimes literally examining it.

You can feel the ambition of the gallery owners to meet the high demands with appropriate goods - reinforced by the way with jewelry and diamonds.

Langeloh Porcelain from Weinheim offers a completely preserved Meissen service for tea and coffee, provided with the sword marks around 1723,

for 380,000 euros.

The Kunstkammer Georg Laue in Munich is coming up with a grotesque jug by Nikolaus Pfaff, a treasury object with no practical function, for which the seller is keeping the price under lock and key because a European museum has already expressed interest.

Demisch Danant (New York, Paris) furnish their bunk with a sofa by Maxime Old for 70,000 euros.

"Ukrainian Renaissance" from London

The Roman gallery Antonacci Lapiccirella is presenting a major format by the neoclassicist Vincenzo Camuccini, which has reappeared after 200 years, with "Horatius Cocles" fighting the Etruscans for 650,000 euros.

The London gallery owner James Butterwick calls his monographic show of works by Oleksandr Bohomazov in the spirit of Futurism and Rayonism, to which the Cologne Museum Ludwig is dedicating an exhibition in 2023, “Ukrainian Renaissance”.

The dealer is expecting 900,000 euros for a self-portrait by the painter from 1914;

other pictures from the estate, including beautiful Caucasian landscapes, cost up to 1.75 million euros, of which 15 percent are to be donated to the Ukraine.

On the occasion of the gallery's fortieth anniversary, Thomas Salis (Salzburg) is presenting works mostly on paper under the title “Principle Collage.

From Arp to West” with a museum cut.

A “Groupe des Femmes” by Sonia Delaunay gathers in a glowing alliance at the Zlotowski stand (Paris) for 195,000 euros.

Among the 21 new exhibitors among the 240 participants, there are six "Showcases": stands for young dealers, mainly from Paris, such as that of Nicolas Bourriaud, who specializes in 19th-century bronzes.

The relief to be present again in the trade fair business can be heard everywhere.

Coming and going are symbolized by two electric doors, rhythmically coordinated in one of the strangest objects at the fair by Suchan Kinoshita, available from van Seggelen for 60,000 euros.

TEFAF, MECC Maastricht, until June 30, admission 50 euros