I am certainly not a hardcore honest-visitor. Maybe I have seen to much bone idle fairs in the past. Yet, lately I tried it once again. I visited the TEFAF, The European Fine Art Honest in Maastricht. I had no thought what to expect, but the numbers certainly helped to arouse my attention. From its modest beginning as The Pictura Fine Art Honest in 1975 it evolved to its current position as the world’s leading fine art honest. It shows a selection of genuine masterpieces from 239 of the world’s most prestigious international dealers.
I have to say, I really had a fantastic time. One discovery was the artist Michallon. This is one of Michallons paintings. And on screen it’s not close to the original. Just gorgeous.
The painting is made with oil on paper (35 x 48.5 cm). The painting here was produced during the summer of 1814, when Michallon traveled to Auvergne with the L’Espine family. During a stop in Vichy the family met the Duchess of Angoulême, recently returned from exile. Michallon executed a series of small paintings of her in the company of the L’Espine family, though the series whereabouts today is unknown.
Another fascinating issue concerns the painting of the well-known artist Frans Hals. On the honest only Mark was exhibited, but Hals also depicted the three evangelists. On the image below you see that behind the man, a vague figure is visible. The same is right for the other three paintings. Mark is accompanied by a lion, John has an eagle, Luke a bull and Matthew a human child. These equal the characteristics of the heavenly creatures in Revelation 4:7 and Ezekiel 10:14. The description of the painting didn’t even mention the animal in the background, so it remains a mystery why Hals connected these characteristics to the four writers.