At TEFAF Maastricht, the market moves differently. The atmosphere often feels closer to that of a museum than to a typical art fair—quiet, reverential, and contemplative. Months before the opening, museum curators often have already studied catalogs and preview lists to identify the objects they want to examine in person. Walking the aisles with patrons and board members, they stop in front of the targeted works, discussing their quality and fit and quietly building the case for acquisitions with their boards. Few fairs have such an encyclopedic range, spanning Roman marbles to Dutch Golden Age painting to contemporary design or jewelry plus Chinese antiquities and African and Oceanic artifacts. It’s something of a “museum mall,” where centuries of artistic production coexist.

At the 36th edition of the Maastricht fair, the overall mood felt markedly and deliberately different from the high-speed, transactional vibe typical of contemporary fairs. That said, several dealers had already made sales by the end of the preview days, though they often had to wait for permission to report them to the press.

Leading Aboriginal art dealer D’Lan Contemporary reported strong early sales, led by Makinti Napanangka’s Untitled – Lupulnga (2009), which was purchased in the $225,000-250,000 range, marking a new record price. Two works by Johnny Warangula Tjupurrula—Water Dreaming and Lightning (1971)—attracted the interest of European collectors, each selling in the $87,000-96,000 range. Also among the early placements was Long Jack Phillipus Tjakamarra’s Water Dreaming (1971), which sold for $60,000-65,000 against a $65,000 asking price. A third, later canvas, dated 1992, sold for $90,000-100,000, also to a European collector. Additionally, early sales were recorded for Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda, whose Thundi (2008) sold for $80,000 and Dibirdibi Country (2011) sold for $160,000-180,000, both acquired by New York collectors.

Founder D’Lan Davidson reported that the gallery had a record start to the year, with particularly strong sales in January fueled by growing global institutional attention to Indigenous Australian art, culminating with a large exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. and the recent extensive show dedicated to the work of Emily Kam Kngwarray at the Tate. A vibrantly tactile piece in the $300,000 price tier hanging at the entrance attracted European interest. Dated 1995, it belongs to a transitional period in which the artist revisited her hand-marked signature style, now very in demand. By the evening, it was on hold with strong institutional interest.

Meanwhile, New York gallerist Marianne Boesky had practically sold out her presentation on Thursday of new kaleidoscopically luminous works by Brazilian artist Thalita Hamaoui, priced from $16,000 to $60,000. Inspired by lush tropical nature and attuned to its rhythms, her vibrant gestural brushwork was paired with delicate flower compositions by visionary 18th-century artist Odilon Redon. As Boesky explained to Observer, these cross-generational dialogues allow the artist to be contextualized within a broader historical conversation while helping the gallery sustainably offset the costs of participating in a fair she considers key for exposing and presenting her contemporary talents to prime European collectors and institutions. Last year, she successfully debuted at the fair with the same strategy, presenting new works by Danielle McKinney in conversation with Edward Hopper.

Also pairing the contemporary with the modern, Mennour’s booth unfolded as a dynamic dialogue between artists from its roster who are already institutionalized and widely considered modern masters. A sculptural study for a more monumental sculpture by Camille Henrot, featuring organic forms, was paired with a Félix Vallotton painting of a woman reading, Liseuse (1912), which sold during the preview days for €350,000. Also placed early were a Giacometti bust priced at €700,000 and a small Ugo Rondinone priced at €350,000 (about $400,000), both going to private collectors. The star of the booth was a €4.5 million Francis Picabia, Statices (ca. 1929), which, as of Saturday, remained unconfirmed despite strong interest.

Meanwhile, Upper East Side gallery Rosenberg & Co.’s presentation explored the crosscurrents of influence between European and American modernism, featuring works by Gertrude Greene, Marsden Hartley, and Charles Green Shaw, paired with a newly restituted Camille Pissarro, which was quickly placed during the preview.

At its TEFAF debut, GRIMM Gallery reported multiple sales of some of its most in-demand young painters, bridging markets through its original location in Amsterdam and its spaces in New York and London. For the gallery, the fair offered a unique opportunity to contextualize its artists within a broader dialogue with art history and institutional discourse. “Collectors’ tastes are becoming increasingly eclectic: collectors of contemporary art are also looking more and more towards Old Masters and design. Many artists in our programme have a strong relationship with art history as well,” founder Jorg Grimm told Observer, noting how this makes TEFAF a particularly fitting context for the gallery. “It offers a unique opportunity to place contemporary art in dialogue with art history and to move quite literally from an Old Master to a contemporary painting.”

By the end of the preview days, the gallery had placed Michael Raedecker’s koan (2022) for $65,000, while Angela Heisch’s The Dreamer (2025) sold for $52,500. Francesca Mollett’s large diptych Broken arc (2025-2026) sold for £100,000 ahead of her highly anticipated solo exhibition at the New York gallery later this month. A smaller painting by another star represented by GRIMM, Caroline Walker, sold for £35,000, while her large-scale work Showbar (2026) was placed for £175,000 with a North American private collection. Additional sales included works by Jonathan Wateridge (£60,000-65,000), Matthias Weischer (€35,000) and two works by Robert Zandvliet, with a smaller canvas placed for €13,500, and his large-scale Paradaidha Lunae Lumen sold for €60,000 to a European museum.

At TEFAF, it is more common than at other fairs to hear Italian spoken in the aisles, as Italian dealers maintain a distinctive presence in both the Old Master and postwar and modern sections, often through multigenerational enterprises. One of these is the long-established Bologna-based gallery Galleria D’Arte Maggiore g.a.m., a regular at TEFAF and at fairs such as Art Basel, often presenting a distinctive selection of Morandi and other postwar Italian masters. These are names that, despite being less visible in the U.S. market, still trigger strong interest in Italy, as in the Etruscan-inspired timeless beauty of Massimo Campigli’s works, a master of the Novecento’s revisitation of classical forms. On hold in the early hours was his monumental painting Casa (1964), which once hung in the St. Tropez villa Campigli built for himself with Gio Ponti. The work reflects the long collaboration between the artist and Ponti, who frequently invited Campigli to create works for his architectural projects, most notably the fresco he executed between 1939 and 1940 for the Palazzo Liviano at the University of Padua, designed by Ponti in 1934…

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