Germany

MIGHTY Maastricht closed on Sunday March 23 and if there ever was any dispute as to whether this was the best antiques and art show in the world then the debate must now be over. In the most adverse circumstances – and they don’t get much more adverse than a war breaking out halfway through proceedings – the fair again triumphed and more business was achieved than at any fair since last year’s Maastricht.

CONSIDERING the pervading gloom and doom, exhibitors at the private view of TEFAF Maastricht last Thursday night were surprisingly optimistic and the overall mood at the packed party was distinctly upbeat.

There were two surprising results at the Lempertz Asian Art sale in Cologne on November 22-23. This large, anonymous Japanese 17th/18th century Indian ink and watercolour, Daimyô in Kamishimo with tachibana weapons and two swords on a tatami mat, paper 4ft x 2ft 10in (1.22m x 86cm), right, soared 100 times estimate to make €80,000 (£51,300).

NOW in its 42nd year, the Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair will be bigger than ever when it runs from January 31 to February 2 at Wurttembergischer Kunstverfein.

In Cologne on October 26 W.G. Herr (18% buyer’s premium) staged a Jubilee sale to mark their 50th auction in the cosy Friesenwall gallery where, as he puts it, Werner Herr has been “swinging the hammer” for 20 years.

NEWS from Cologne, one of the contemporary art capitals of the world, is that installations are as trendy as ever. At Art Cologne 2002, to run from October 30 to November 3 at Kolnmesse, half of the 20 international artists selected for the fair’s promotional programme, whereby young artists are sponsored with free stands to encourage new work, are into installations.

GERMANY: The sales of the firm of Kricheldorf (15% buyer’s premium) of Freiburg are relatively rare occasions but when they do hold them there are a large number of lots. There were two sales in July at Berlin. That on July 29-30 was a general affair (4205 lots).

GERMANY: There was widespread relief in the art world last week when the Zwinger Palace museum was saved from the worst of the flooding in Dresden.

GERMANY: The world’s largest collection of Meissen porcelain has had to be rescued from serious flooding – only a week after plans were announced for the re-opening of the museum that houses it.

After three years of restoration work, the porcelain rooms of the Zwinger State Art Collection in Dresden are to re-open to the public on Sunday October 6.

GERMANY: Round about the year 286AD times were very interesting in Britannia. Some small documents of this small and little known facet of British history appeared in the Lanz (15% buyer’s premium) sale in Munich on May 27.

Museums are well known as the protectors of age, but now we have an example of how age is to prove the downfall of such an institution. The silver lining to this cloud is that it provides a unique opportunity for the trade and collectors.

A large, gilt-copper altar statue of Amitayus, the Buddha of Infinite Life, on a lotus flower base, right, 3ft 2in (96cm) tall and hailing from Inner Mongolia/Dolonnor or China (c.1700), proved the main attraction at Nagel’s Asian Art sale in Stuttgart on November 10, selling for DM420,000 (£134,000).

GERMANY: Joseph Beuys’ Sonnenkreuz (1947-48), a patinated bronze sculpture 15 x 81/4in (37 x 21cm), evoking a crucifix against a radiating sun, sold comfortably over estimate for DM200,000 (£64,000) at the Lempertz Contemporary Art sale in Cologne on December 5.

GERMANY: TYPEWRITERS may not be renowned for their beauty but there was undeniable aesthetic charm, as well as historic significance, to the 1867 Malling Hansen Writing Ball that set a new world record price for an historical typewriter with a double-estimate DM150,000 (£48,000) for Auction Team Köln in Cologne on December 1.

IT CANNOT often be said of an auction catalogue that its lot numbers will be used for a very long time, perhaps a century or more, as reference numbers in a standard academic publication. The catalogue of Numismatik Lanz of Munich is just such a one.

It is not usually understood that the prophet Mohammed did not actually ban images. This came about some 60 years after his death. In very late AH77 (696AD) the then caliph instituted an epigraphic gold coinage: the dinar (cf. Latin: denarius).

The German-based Oetke Group are currently in negotiations to sell the Bond Street galleries of Colnaghi, one of the oldest names in the London art trade, to the London and Munich Old Master dealer Konrad Bernheimer.

The rediscovery of a significant work by a major Old Master painter is always an event for the art trade, even if the work not obviously commercial. When Anthony Blunt wrote his monograph on Nicholas Poussin (1594-1665) this painting, right, of The Holy Family with St. John the Baptist, executed c.1627-28 when the young Poussin first worked in Rome, was only known from engravings.

TOP German dealer Konrad Bernheimer, who has galleries in Munich and London, is the driving force behind a new international, prestige fair at the Haus der Kunst, Munich scheduled for a 2003 launch.