Buyers in bold (Venus Williams, Aerin Lauder, Remy Renzullo, Raf Simons): check. Extravagant floral installations (a Matterhorn of gypsophila, roses and chrysanthemums by Ten Kate Flowers & Decorations): check. Itinerant waiters chipping and offering oysters and offering champagne: check. Representatives of the best museums in the world in shopping mode (Virginia Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Hispanic Society Museum & Library): check. Seven thousand years of covetousness (from jewelry to antiques to contemporary sculpture): check. As I heard a guest happily say, “This is candy country!”
The latest edition of the European Fine Arts Fair (TEFAF), hailed for decades as the most important of its kind in the world, has just opened in the charming Dutch city of Maastricht, welcoming top-notch collectors, eagle-eyed curators and an avalanche of international journalists. This includes yours truly, a contributing editor of ADVERTISEMENT, who co-hosted, with Melissa Biggs Bradley of Indagare, a ADVERTISEMENT-brand Insider’s journey for 14 design guests: decorators, connoisseurs, travel, design and architecture enthusiasts.
TEFAF Maastricht 2023 opened to the public on Saturday March 11 and will run until Sunday March 19; among its offerings are the following items – my sampling of the thousands offered by nearly 300 international stockists. This is what I would buy if I had the money.
Mitchell Owens
SJ Phillips
There’s still time to calibrate your ensemble for the coronation of King Charles III, so if you’re thinking about tiaras, there’s no better place to get the glitter than the stand of SJ Phillips. There, among other jeweled headpieces, is a 1950s necklace cleverly designed so that it can be transformed into a tiara in the blink of an eye.
Mitchell Owens
Adrian Alan
The swaggering star of Adrian Alanis an enormous library created by late 19th century revivalist geniuses François Linke and Léon Messagé. Crafted from mahogany, tulipwood, kingwood, padauk, oak, and miles of gilt bronze, it measures 148 inches high by 128 inches wide by 33 inches deep.
