BRUSSELS, BELGIUM.- The 49th Foire des Antiquaires de Belgique, the world’s oldest, has began. It will end on February 15. For almost half a century, the time-honored Brussels Antiques Fair, has gathered serious art collectors and amateur enthusiasts. This prestigious event organized by the Belgian Chamber of Antique Dealers has been admired for its professionalism and flair, earning a reputation as one of the most important events in the Belgian cultural calendar. Some 25,000-30,000 people are expected to attend this year, about 40 percent from abroad, including business travelers visiting Brussels during the fair. While many of those who attend are serious collectors and international museum curators, others are simply curious to admire rare works of art in sublime settings.
Since taking over as president last year, Jan De Maere has brought a fresh vision and energy to the fair, ensuring that it remains ‘‘one of the front-runners of the European fair calendar, alongside Tefaf Maastricht and the Paris Biennale,’’ he says. This year, he has taken the radical step of moving the event from the elegant, but cramped, Palais des Beaux-Arts to the more spacious Building A of the Tour and Taxis complex. ‘‘We have a new location, a new interior design and a new energy,’’ says De Maere. The new location also has practical advantages, offering a much larger exhibition space and parking for 1,000 vehicles. This year’s fair brings together a select group of 92 exhibitors who are all recognized experts in their fields. Most are Belgian, but there are also talented dealers from Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, France, Italy, Monaco and Switzerland. They cover a wide range of specialties, including African art, which has long been a Belgian specialty, antique jewelry, Flemish tapestries, Old Master paintings, curios, engravings and prints, antique weapons, rare and modern books and objets d’art from the 13th to the 20th centuries.
The theme of this year’s Brussels Antiques Fair, is disegno, or the art of drawing. With this the Royal Chamber of Belgian Art Dealers aims to show that all art originates in rough ideas sketched on paper. The idea of disegno surfaced in Renaissance Italy at around the same time as the earliest art schools were being founded. It was originally used to define the art of capturing the essence of an object. Vasari was one of the first artists to use the word disegno, describing it as the skill of representing universal ideas with the hand. Inspired by this theme, the fair organizers have invited 12 major international dealers, all of them specializing in Old Master drawings, to exhibit some of their most interesting works.
