Convincing Craftmanship and Expertise at Tefaf Maastricht
By Shirley Cottaar.
This year it was the 30th edition from Tefaf Maastricht where works of extraordinary provenance and quality took the lead. Almost 71.000 visitors out of 60 countries came to the world’s leading fine art and antique fair at the MECC (Maastricht Exhibition & Congress Centre) from 10-19 March 2017.
Tefaf Maastricht provides an unrivalled marketplace for the world leading dealers and specialists to present the finest works available, covering 7,000 years of art history. Diplomate Magazine reports about some remarkable discoveries from the fair.
Otto Jakob
This master in jewellery from Karlsruhe surprises with stunning creations that are much more than jewellery. It is art. Especially if you consider that Otto Jakob is an autodidact. His creations are inspired by history or nature combined with smart engineering. Showing his bracelet ghost crab, Otto explains that already as a child he used all his senses observing the smallest details in nature and museums putting them in his memory.
“When I was on holiday in California years ago with my family I found this ghost crab arm and I used it to develop this bracelet.” The bracelet is connected to gimbal joints, and a lock modelled as a crab claw. Xuanas, the design for this year’s Tefaf, are earrings with yellow gold casts of St. John Wort petal’s. “Beside the story behind the jewel, for me, it is essential that the jewel is completely round or as we say in the German language “rundum”. Not only the front of the jewel but also the sides and the back must be elaborated. That is my signature.”
Special objects
Eguiguren Arte de Hispanoamérica shows a very special collection of antique calabash gourds with a “Bombilla” made of silver. These gourds were used to drink Mate, a traditional drink in some countries in South America, especially in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil. Bernard de Grunne, leading tribal art dealer, shows a magnificent antique chief bell from Kongo at his stand.
Hemmerle
Another striking exhibition stand to mention is the fourth generation family-run jeweller Hemmerle in Munich. The Hemmerle family travel across the world treasure hunting for rare materials from colour changing garnets and melo pearls, to found materials like ancient carved jade and antique cameos.
Each jewel is handcrafted and layered with cultural references; they are as original as a work of art with design aesthetic of powerfully audacious modernity. A single piece takes over 500 hours of work and years can pass waiting to find the perfect coloured stones to complete a piece.
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Main picture: a Kongo Chief bell from Democratic Republic of Congo. Kongo, bell, 639. Alissa LaGamma et alli, Power and Majesty the Art of the Kongo Masters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
