SUPPORTING CONSERVATION PROJECTS
Every year, TEFAF donates up to €50,000 to one or two museum conservation projects, selected by an independent panel of international experts. The fund's aim is both to support the restoration of particular art works and to boost awareness of the field of conservation science overall. TEFAF's goal is to encourage the sharing of knowledge between museums and also with the general public. For this reason, each selected work must be on public view for at least two years after its restoration and each project has a video presence at the Fair throughout the entire duration of TEFAF Maastricht as well as on the TEFAF website. The Fund is one of a selection of initiatives run by TEFAF that demonstrates the Foundation's ongoing dedication to supporting and protecting the arts. Museums and institutions that have attended TEFAF Maastricht are eligible to apply for the grants.
Museum Restoration Fund 2018 Awards
TEFAF awarded a total of €50,000 to the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (MNAA), Portugal and the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston, USA, to support their distinct restoration and conservation projects. The Fund will support the conservation of ‘Capela das Albertas’, an integral part of the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga and a striking example of a Portuguese ‘gold church’. In the USA it will support the restoration of Portrait of a Woman with a Gold Chain, by Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (1606 – 1669), one half of a pair of oval paintings gifted to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in the late 19th century. The portrait has been on near constant view and has not been treated for 50 years. Each project aims to present to visitors the original beauty of each work, preserving cultural heritage for generations to come.
Presentations about each project will be displayed at TEFAF Maastricht, which takes place from the 10-18 March at the MECC (Maastricht Exhibition and Congress Centre), Maastricht, The Netherlands.
Recipients 2018
TEFAF Museum Restoration Fund
TEFAF Museum Restoration Fund
Since 2012
The fund was launched to mark TEFAF' Maastricht's 25th anniversary in 2012. The first awards went to the Denver Art Museum (USA), for the restoration of its Canaletto painting, Venice: The Molo from the Bacino di San Marco; and to the Rijksmuseum (Netherlands), for the conservation of its ten bronze memorial statuettes from the 15th century tomb of Isabella of Bourbon.
The 2013 awards were granted to Worcester Art Museum (USA), for the restoration of the William Hogarth pendant portraits of William and Elizabeth James; and to the Ashmolean Museum (UK), for the restoration of two candelabra combining elements of classical sculpture with carvings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi.
In 2014 the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (Netherlands) was awarded funding for the restoration of three coffin sets and one inner sarcophagus from the 21st dynasty (c. 1069 - 945 BC), discovered in 1891 at Bab el-Gasus, near the Valley of the Kings and modern-day Luxor; and the Wallace Collection (UK) for the restoration of the Joshua Reynolds painting Miss Nelly O'Brien.
In 2015 the awards went to Museum Kunstpalast (Germany) and Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (USA), both for the restoration of a work by Francisco de Zurbarán.
In 2016, the Fund was awarded to support the reconstruction of The Tower of Nanjing, from the de Robien collection at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes (France), and the restoration of The Girl in the Muslin Dress - Symphony in White by James McNeil Whistler at The Singer Memorial Foundation, (Netherlands).
In 2017, TEFAF awarded €54,000 to three distinct projects, two larger and one smaller, either side of the Atlantic. One is the restoration and reconstruction of the never before seen work by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) entitled Absolution (c.1900) in the Musée Rodin collection (France). The second is the conservation of Judith with the Head of Holofernes (c.1570) by Titian (14881576), which has been on near constant display since entering the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts (USA), in 1938.
The final, smaller, project is the conservation of Der Blaue Reiter (1912), a journal edited by Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) and Franz Marc (1880-1916). This 140-page journal includes 34 unnumbered plates (6 in colour and 28 in monochrome), 2 foldouts and 2 pages of musical scores. It was acquired jointly in 2015 by the RKD - Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, all based in The Netherlands.