No Rival For Maastricht?

The TEFAF New York Fall fair reports strong sales and Dutch flower power blooms anew

- Huon Mallalieu

THE old adage about no publicity being bad publicity proved to be true once again at the TEFAF New York Fall fair. The heavy-footed incursion by the District Attorney’s men to seize an ancient Persian relief from the stand of Rupert Wace of London did nothing to put off either institutional or private antiquities buyers, let alone collectors in other disciplines.

The 8in-square relief, priced at about $1.2 million (£916,800), was suspected to have been removed from Persepolis shortly after 1930, when the Persian government outlawed some, but not apparently all, antiquities exports. Its subsequent history was clear.

Frederick Cleveland Morgan, a Canadian department-store heir, donated it to a museum in Quebec in 1950 or 1951 and it was exhibited openly there until 2011, when it was stolen. The museum took the insurance payout and, when the sculpture was recovered in 2014, chose to let the insurer keep it. Mr Wace purchased it from the insurance company. It might be interesting to know why the museum did not take it back, after exhibiting it without trouble for more than 60 years.