Maastricht news: the world's most important art fair continues to throw up revelatory works in all media, says Samson Spanier

Apollo, May, 2006 by Samson Spanier

Maastricht's European Fine Art Fair in March was certainly a commercial success (see 'Art Market', pp. 96-100), but it was also a crucible for exciting discoveries. In the decorative arts, the highlight was a remarkable display of 60 carved pieces of amber with Georg Laue, Munich, including a German 16th-century Madonna and Child and a portrait of a classicial warrior, c. 1701-1713, that may have been made for the Amber Room in St Petersburg. At Kugel of Paris, meanwhile, there was an unpublished Roman pietra dura tabletop, c. 1580.

Among the paintings, the most striking and unexpected discovery was the Allegory of the Four Elements (right) with Rob Smeets, Milan. The painting was almost unknown, its only recorded sale being from one private collection to another in 1993. Smeets had the painting cleaned recently, which not only revealed its quality, but also a signature--Louis Finson, the early Dutch Caravaggist who visited Naples but spent much of his life in France. The Allegory can now be considered Finson's best work, given its remarkable departure from the tradition of such allegories, in which each figure would be depicted conventionally and in a single panel. Instead, the figures in this painting are highly naturalistic, and their violent interaction forms a spinning circle with a criss-cross of arms at its centre. And the attributes are not clearly identifiable, but become instead opportunities for delightful optical effects, such as the glow around Fire.

David Koetser of Zurich, meanwhile, used the fair to reattribute a Portrait of Pieter Jacobsz Olycan to Frans Hals, whose authorship has been rejected for the past 40 years. The removal of overpainting on the hair and ear has revealed the same broad, confident brushstrokes as on the face, conforming to Hals's style, as do the impasted ridges in the neck ruff, visible after the removal of varnish. Finally, technical analysis and research on the sitter's clothes date it in 1629-30, which makes it too early to be a copy of a later portrait of the sitter by Hals, in the Ringling Museum, Sarasota.

But discoveries or reappearances were not limited to Dutch painting. The secretive Wildenstein revealed that its collection contains a Claude sunset over a sea, a Pissarro of sunrise over the Louvre, as well as a Degas and a Monet, none of which have ever come to auction. There was also an unknown Francesco Solimena at Charles Beddington, London. Caylus gallery, Madrid, offered another unexpected highlight, a Madonna and Child from 16th-century Spain, probably by Luis de Morales, 'El Divino' (1509-86). This small panel, apparently in excellent condition, boasts closely observed details, such as the stretching big toe of the child. Who says that there is no more art to discover?

NEW FIELDS OF COLLECTING As the fair attracts more and more collectors, new areas of interest are appearing. This 17th-century alabaster relief of Mary Magdalene (right) is from the Hispanic Philippines. Although the subject is European, the facial type of Mary is Philippine, and her halo is an un-European spiky sunburst. It was offered by Jaime Eguiguren, an Argentinian dealer showing for the second time, who specialises in objects of all sorts that synthesise European and South American styles. He also offered 18th-century Guatemalan (Christian) saints, as well as Spanish-influenced wooden chests. A different specialist interest that is also becoming mainstream is historic wallpapers, offered by Carolle Thibaut-Pomerantz, Paris. She showed a two-panel wood-block depiction of Les Rives du Bosphore designed by Joseph Dufour (1757-1827) and an unpublished wallpaper, c. 1797-1801, after a design by Charles Percier, which was probably made by the French firm Jacquemart et Bernard.

The fair's decision to invite contemporary dealers, in order to attract other types of collector, also inspired the traditional stands to diversify. Fiore de Brantes, for instance, offered both a French Regence period fireplace, c. 1730, and a set of 1969 Sciolary lamps, of cuboid shape but composed of many small overlapping metal plates. Meanwhile, Michael Nolte of Munster hung a Kirchner above a Dresden cabinet, c. 1765.