Germany

FINE weather helped the 43rd Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair welcome around 6000 visitors, up 20 per cent up on 2003, to the city’s Württemberg Kunstverein from January 23-25. The fair, staged by the Verband Deutscher Antiquäre (German Antiquarian Bookdealers’ Association) since 1962, is the largest of its kind in Germany – the 96 exhibitors included dealers from Switzerland, Austria, France, Israel and the UK (Bernard Shapero from London).

MUNICH-based auctioneers Ketterer Kunst reported “steady growth” in 2003 to post an auction turnover of €15.5m (£10.7m), boosted by the €5.7m Tremmel Collection in May.

The energetic organisers of ART COLOGNE, Koelnmesse, have beefed up their team with the appointment last week of Gérard Andrew Goodrow, 39, as fair director, a new post. He should be happily settled in by the end of October when the next ART COLOGNE opens.

DRESDEN’S Zwinger palace will enter the second phase of its renovation process in September, less than a year after the first phase culminated in the opening of the Porcelain Collection.

THE Hindenburg archive, which includes the famous Leica and accessories recovered from the wreckage by Fritz Deeg, the steward onboard the airship when disaster struck on May 6, 1937, is being offered by WestLicht on May 23 and 24.

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.

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.

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).

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.