The 7 Most Memorable Artworks Presented by TEFAF Exhibitors

Wartski
Georges and Jean Fouquet, Masque Chinois Pendant, c. 1924-25 and 1931.

Initially known only through a black-and-white archival photograph published in Les Fouquet, Bijoutiers & Joailliers à Paris 1860-1960, the location of the enigmatic Masque Chinois pendant remained a mystery for decades. “Captioned in the catalog as ‘unknown location’, the photograph of the jewel was taken as a record of inclusion in Georges Fouquet’s stand at the landmark Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes of 1925. Yet, the object itself had long vanished from public view,” notes Katherine Purcell, joint managing director at Wartski. The archival image revealed the captivating craftsmanship of the pendant, Purcell notes. “The rock crystal mask was surmounted with a radiating diamond-set Chinese hat, and the earrings and chin suspended with diamonds terminated with substantial carved emerald beads measuring some three centimeters in height,” she adds. “The design was so striking that when the Musée des Arts Décoratifs commemorated the Exposition’s 50th anniversary in 1976, the jewel’s original drawing — crafted by Louis Fertey and preserved in the Fouquet Archive — was exhibited instead.”

“The pendant resurfaced only two years ago,” Purcell shares, when the gallery discovered it in a private collection, where it had been acquired from the legendary dealer Michel Périnet. Lightly adjusted from the original 1925 composition, “its current form bears the unmistakable hallmarks of Jean Fouquet, who joined his father’s firm in 1919,” adds Purcell. “The diamond hat had been replaced with a polished ebony cap, while white-gold panels supporting vertical rows of diamonds now flank the mask — innovations consistent with Jean’s documented experimentation with ebony by 1931.”

This extraordinary jewel “is a rare manifestation of two generations of the Maison Fouquet collaborating successively on the same jewel, regarded as one of the most haunting and significant contributions to the iconic Exposition that gave the Art Deco movement its name.” The pendant was exhibited by Wartski at TEFAF Maastricht in 2025 — exactly one century later.

Van De Weghe
René Magritte, L’ Invention du Feu, 1946.

Van de Weghe is a dedicated secondary market gallery, specializing in works by Modern, postwar, and contemporary international artists. This includes one of the most significant Surrealist artists, René Magritte (1898-1967): “We aim to exhibit standout masterworks, both to highlight the relationships between artists that worked contemporaneously, and to demonstrate our commitment to sharing 20th-century excellence with collectors. In this sense, when presented with the opportunity to acquire L’Invention du Feu we knew it would align perfectly with the gallery’s vision,” notes Christophe Van de Weghe, owner of the gallery.

This artwork occupies a significant position within the works associated with Magritte’s short-lived “Impressionist” period. “Its stylistic affinities and documentation suggest the completion of the painting at the end of 1946,” explains Van de Weghe. “Had this been finished earlier, it would almost certainly have been included in the publication Dix Tableaux de Magritte, the key presentation of his production.” Further emphasizing the high esteem in which the painter himself held this work, “the immediate critical visibility of the piece ensured it was selected as the representative example of his Impressionist phase for the Venice Biennale in 1948,” shares Van de Weghe. “The painting comes directly from a private collector, who had held it in their possession for more than 30 years, ensuring both the continuity of its history and the preservation of its condition,” explains Van de Weghe. “Such long-term custodianship enhances the artwork’s significance along with underscoring its rarity on the market.” By exhibiting L’Invention du Feu at TEFAF Maastricht in 2025, the gallery “had the chance to demonstrate a work pertaining to the highest caliber, both historically and stylistically, of Magritte’s pictorial achievements,” concludes Van de Weghe.

Lebreton
Guidette Carbonell, Lion - Bas - Relief, 1938.

In 2025, Lebreton debuted at TEFAF New York. Specializing in artist-designer furniture and ceramics by European artists working in the postwar and 20th century periods, the gallery exhibited a “personal and art historical discovery,” a carved and partially glazed stoneware sculpture, Lion – Bas-Relief by Guidette Carbonell (1910-2010).

“This discovery was a combination of research and chance,” denotes Karim Mehanna, co-founder and owner of Lebreton. “While researching Carbonell’s early experiments with stoneware, we noticed inconsistencies between the works documented in archives and the pieces located in private collections,” adds Mehanna. “This prompted us to contact private sources and search for possible surviving examples, where we encountered this piece in a monograph on Carbonell, as it was exhibited at the 1939 Salon des artistes décorateurs.” To the gallery’s surprise, not long after in 2024, they acquired Lion – Bas-Relief. “Our attraction to the work was immediate,” notes Mehanna. “Beyond its visual appeal, the work is fascinating because it represents a little-documented phase in Carbonell’s career, when she worked at the Manufacture de Sèvres from 1938 to 1939.”

Along with the other motifs prompting the acquisition of the piece, Mehanna was struck by its “unusual combination of expressive force and charm — a tension characteristic of the artist’s early work but rarely seen in stoneware from Sèvres in the late 1930s.” This work fills a gap in the artist’s œuvre from the Sèvres production, which is considered extremely rare. Two other ceramics from this period can be found at the Musée national de Céramique de Sèvres. Mehanna concludes, “The discovery is meaningful not only because it enriches our understanding of Carbonell’s technical and artistic experimentation, but also because it brings back into view a work that had effectively disappeared from the historical record for decades.”

Galerie Jacques Lacoste
Jean-Michel Frank, The Straw Marquetry Decor of the Princesse de Polignac’s Music Salon, c. 1929.

Since 1997, Galerie Jacques Lacoste has built a strong reputation in dealing 20th-century decorative arts, along with rediscovering and promoting French designers working from the 1920s to the 1970s. Among the most renowned designers of the time was Jean-Michel Frank (1895-1941). “Working at the height of his fame in the 1920s, Frank was breaking with the decorative overload of the early 20th century, adopting a radically opposite style,” shares Jacques Lacoste, owner and founder of Galerie Jacques Lacoste.

“He liberated domestic space from clutter, reduced spaces and furnishings to the strictly necessary, and favored neutral tones and natural materials.” As Lacoste explains, “His bold proposals and minimalist elegance caused a veritable explosion in the decorative arts, an aesthetic shock,” as the craftsmanship of mastering a material became more valuable and appealing than an artwork characterized by a decorative motif. “Frank’s vision of unostentatious luxury enhanced simple materials through the most refined form of artistry and exceptional rigor to detail.”

The Straw Marquetry Decor of the Princesse de Polignac’s Music Salon — commissioned by Princess Winnaretta de Polignac for her music room in the Villa Mé Chaplin in Jouy-en-Josas — embodies Frank’s approach to design, shares Lacoste: “This exceptional and extremely rare straw marquetry bears witness to Jean-Michel Frank’s approach to decoration, creating an atmosphere that is both simple and eminently sophisticated.” The blond straw panels covered the entire walls of the music room and entrance door. “With no decorative motifs except on the wall of the niche, Frank plays on the subtlety of the material to reproduce a musical stave taken from a composition by the Prince de Polignac — composer and husband to the Princess,” notes Lacoste. The set made its debut on the art market at TEFAF New York in 2025. “Before this moment the panels had not been on the market before, presenting a discovery of Frank’s œuvre,” states Lacoste.

Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books  
Eloi Tassart (alias the Master of Claude de France) The Hachette Hours, c. 1508-1512. 

Presented to the public for the first time since 1957 at TEFAF Maastricht in 2025, the Hachette Hours is an exemplary small Book of Hours created for Claude de France when she was a child. When asked about the significance of the piece, Mireia Castaño, head of academic relations and research at Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books, described it as “one of the most precious manuscripts in our inventory.” The book “was likely commissioned as a gift from her mother, Queen Anne of Brittany,” adds Castaño. “Its delicate scale and rich program of emblems reflect Claude’s early education, which Queen Anne shaped personally around piety, patronage, and the responsibilities of a future queen.”

Among the earliest masterpieces attributed to the Master of Claude de France, the work resurfaced only recently. “The Hachette Hours had vanished after 1957 and, for decades, was only known through imperfect reproductions.” When the gallery acquired the manuscript, it presented the opportunity to directly examine the work. “This had not been done in over 40 years and marked a commendable scholarly rediscovery for early 16th-century French illumination,” notes Castaño. Across the dedicated research of the book, “an extraordinary convergence of events started to surround it. In 2012, researcher Pierre-Gilles Girault had proposed that the anonymous Master of Claude de France might actually be Eloi Tassart, an illuminator active in Tours and documented in royal service in the early 16th century,” unfolds Castaño. “The hypothesis was truly compelling, but, without any securely identifiable work by Tassart, it remained unresolved.”

Then, in 2024, a crucial archival discovery appeared. “A newly published article by Guy-Michel Leproux reconstructed the library of the Parisian notary Nicolas Lecamus and uncovered a 1595 inventory describing a ‘small, red-velvet-bound flower book’ explicitly attributed to ‘Maistre Heloy de Tours,’ undoubtedly Eloi Tassart.” The inventory description closely matches an exceptional flower model book by the same illuminator, that the gallery sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art several years ago. This convergence of events — with the reemergence of the Hachette Hours after decades, just as the archival revelation was published — created what Castaño calls a “uniquely illuminating moment” that “may finally confirm the identity of the elusive Master of Claude de France.”

Day & Faber 
Johannes Vingboons, Sea Battle Between Dutch and Portuguese Fleet off the Coast of Goa in 1638, c.1665.

Specializing in European drawings from the last five hundred years, Day & Faber aim to find drawings of exceptional quality, like the Sea Battle Between Dutch and Portuguese Fleet off the Coast of Goa. The gallery presented this remarkable discovery at TEFAF Maastricht in 2023. “When we spotted this magnificent depiction of a naval battle piece in the catalog of an English provincial auction house, we were immediately intrigued by both the subject and size [438 x 760 mm],” says James Faber, director of Day & Faber. 

Following the acquisition and conservation of the drawing, “the research process revealed a compelling story of empire, travel, and collaboration.” Faber adds, “By analyzing the flags’ inscriptions and ship types, the scene was identified as the encounter between the Dutch and Portuguese fleets at Goa, southern India, on 24 January 1638.” Although the Dutch blockade of the Portuguese port ultimately failed, “the artist allowed himself a degree of poetic license, shaping the image to suit the sensibilities of a Dutch audience.” As the research furthered, so did the findings, revealing Johannes Vingboons (1616-1670) as the draughtsman of the work. “Vingboons was one of the foremost makers of topographical and cartographical drawings in mid-17th-century Amsterdam. He worked closely with publisher Joan Blaeu who, through an exclusive contract with the Dutch East India Company (VOC), provided him with privileged material and connections.” This collaboration supplied designs for the realization of the Atlas Blaeu – van der Hem (c. 1665-73), “described by UNESCO as the greatest atlas to have been produced. This atlas, was the catalyst to two other drawings by Vingboons: the first, a highly worked-up watercolor that was included in the atlas; the second, this very drawing, which likely was an independent commission from a VOC official or dignitary,” Faber explains.

The fine quality of the draughtsmanship, which led to its acquisition by the gallery, and uncovered a rich history, marked the occasion for it to be presented at TEFAF Maastricht in 2023. “Confirming the appeal that we saw in the drawing,” states Faber, the work was sold to a private collector, who generously exhibited it in the Morgan Library’s exhibition Far and Away: Drawings from the Clement C. Moore Collection in 2024.

Lucas Ratton
Bembe Figure, Republic of Congo, the late 19th – early 20th century.

Presented at TEFAF Maastricht in 2025, this small ancestor figure from the Bembe ethnic group — located in what is today the Republic of the Congo, Africa — stands as a rare and powerful example of Central African sculpture. “Dating from the late 19th – early 20th century, the figure was originally commissioned during its owner’s lifetime as a personal prestige object, intended to signal wealth, status, and social importance within the community,” states Lucas Ratton, director of the eponymous gallery. “This discovery marked the finding of an object where ritual function, historical depth, and sculptural quality con- verged with exceptional force,” he explains. “The acquisition of the sculpture was not only a historical finding, however. It also presented an opportunity for the gallery to acquire a piece that fully aligned with our longstanding focus on major Central African sculpture.”

Following the passing of the commissioner, “the sculpture underwent a profound transformation,” Ratton shares. The family repossessed the work through a cultural ceremony intended to shift its powers toward protection, prosperity, and the continuity of the lineage. “The figure was ritualized and became a nkiteki, an ancestorial figure endowed with protective power through the insertion of a magical charge (bilongo) by a diviner priest (nganga).” Raoul Lehuard, academic and expert of the art of the peoples of the Congo, identified it as part of a distinct Bembe stylistic group. Ratton explains that “the sculpture depicts a seated male figure holding a fly whisk, an attribute of dignity and authority. This posture, together with the unusual scale and the strikingly graphic treatment of the face, makes the work exceptional within the known corpus.” He furthermore shares that “the figure’s rich patina and expressive intensity bears witness to prolonged ritual use, revealing a sculpture where social status, ancestral presence, and spiritual power are inseparably bound.” When the figure was later neutralized, the spiritual charge was removed, and traces of partial cloth wrapping account for the subtle variations in patina still visible today. “For Lehuard, the group to which this figure belongs, ranks among the finest achievements of Bembe art,” concludes Ratton, “confirming its rarity and cultural regard.”