TEFAF Announces 2025 Museum Acquisitions: Félix Vallotton, Léon Spilliaert, and a ‘Superstar’ Rhino Named Clara

Though the TEFAF art fair has begun dipping its toes into contemporary fare, the European Fine Arts Foundation’s spring art fairs—in Maastricht and New York—remain best known for its Old Master paintings and antiquities. For this reason, the prestigious fair has long attracted established collectors, patrons, and high-ranking international curators.

Sales at this year’s Maastrict edition, held on March 20 through 25, were “slow and steady,” ARTnews reported. A fair spokesperson additionally remarked that, compared to last year’s fair, this year’s edition saw more institutional acquisitions.

One notable acquisition is the Art Institute of Chicago’s (AIC) purchase of Léon Spilliaert’s 1907 Autoportrait sur fond bleu (Self-Portrait With Blue Background). The 20th-century Belgian artist is (or was…) a “hidden gem,” according to a Dutch art adviser who spoke with ARTnews in Maastrict. The AIC purchased the pastel drawing from David Levy, a dealer with galleries in Brussels and Paris.

Jay A. Clarke, curator of prints and drawings at the AIC, told ARTnews that museum curators attend TEFAF every year and had been on the hunt for a work by Spilliaert for a decade. “We have passed on several drawings over the years, waiting for a great work from 1907 or 1908, and this haunting and powerful self-portrait was certainly worth the wait,” said Clarke. The museum wasted no time in showing off their news prize. Autoportrait sur fond bleu is included in “Strange Realities: The Symbolist Imagination,” on view at the AIC through Jan. 5, 2026.

Other important museum sales from this year’s TEFAF fairs include the central panel of a 16th-century triptych depicting the entombment of Christ by Maerten van Heemskerck to the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts (sold by Caretto & Occhinegro); Félix Vallotton’s 1902 painting Champ de blé, Locquirec, showing a woman in traditional dress walking by the season in the small town in Brittany, to the Clark Art Institute, also in Massachusetts (sold by Agnews); and an intricate terracotta “tripod” sculpture by Joseph Chinard that was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (sold by Stuart Lochhead Sculpture).

Perhaps the cutest fair purchase (from Kunsthandel Mehringer) is Petrus Camper’s 18th-century sculpture Miss Clara, which the Rijksmuseum has now added to its collection of rhinoceros art. Like many in the Netherlands, Camper—a scientist as well as an artist—was fascinated by a superstar rhino named Clara who was brought to Rotterdam from India in 1741 and proceeded to tour Europe for nearly two decades, becoming a celebrity in her own right.