New Year, New Discoveries, Antique Art!

Whether or not 2025 is your year for embarking on life changing resolutions or simply exploring what’s happening in your neighborhood, January kicks off with two fine art fairs on two continents, BRAFA and The Winter Show. Each fair offers an array of enticing, vetted treasures, from fine art to antiques and contemporary furniture and decor.

The Brussels Antiques and Fair Art fair (Jan. 26-Feb. 2) celebrates 70 years this year with more than 130 prestigious dealers and galleries from 16 countries, after rigorous vetting by internationally renowned art specialists. The result – as it is every year – is spectacular and huge, as if you set foot in several climate-controlled football fields, where uniformed waiters serve foie gras canapes and glasses of Champagne amidst high style booths adorned with key works of art selected from the world’s most famous museums. BRAFA has become an unmissable event in the art market calendar!

Highlights of this year’s edition include a spectacularly well-preserved Venetian landscape by Giovanni Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto, the Italian painter celebrated for his stunning depictions of landscapes and detailed cityscapes in this most majestic of cities. For collectors of Marc Chagall, there is his 1982 “Les fiancés au Cirque”, a delightful blue oil, tempura and pastel painting that combines aspects of the Expressionism, Modernism and Fauvism art movements that surfaced in Paris in the early 1900s.

Of equal importance is the fair’s focus on the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage which will showcase the diverse aspects of its work in a dedicated space for visitors to learn about the conservation and restoration of artworks, collection management and scientific analysis for authentication of artworks.

In New York City, The Winter Show sets up at the Park Avenue Armory from January 24-February 2. It also features rare and exceptional art and antiques from over 70 international dealers and galleries whose curated booths showcase museum-quality works. If your bank account is holding you back from purchasing, you can deepen your knowledge of collecting trends and topics at the talks and panel discussions with leading experts in art and antiques taking place during the fair.

An outstanding item in this fair is offered by Peter Harrington (London) and a letter signed by Queen Elizabeth I (August 23, 1567) wherein are her instructions for organizing and collecting the revenue of the first public lottery in England. The letter is written in a clear clerical hand and signed by the queen “Elizabeth R”. The lottery was devised to raise money for the repair of the harbors, with 400,00 lots at 19 shillings, and a top prize of 15,000 pounds (over 2 million pounds today). Prizes were paid using gold and merchandise such as tapestries, linens and fine fabrics. Suspicions and slow ticket sales resulted in a delayed draw in 1569.

Looking ahead to February, Master Drawings New York fair runs from February 1-8 and is spread out amongst 29 galleries on the upper East Side of Manhattan rather than one central location. Museum-quality works on paper from the 15^th to the 21^st centuries, as well as complementary paintings and sculpture, are on display at these galleries where no appointment is necessary.

At Les Enluminures which specializes in Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, miniatures and jewelry, we admired manuscript paintings from the gallery’s extensive and world renowned collection. Of the 22 works of manuscript painting in the exhibition is Giovanni di Paolo’s “The Miracle of the Cradle” in an initial ‘G’ in a choir book (Siena, 1435) and a richly colored miniature depicting Saint Michael Weighing Souls in an initial ‘L’ choir book from Germany, is attributed to a woman, Magdalena Kremer (ca. 1490).

If art fairs are not your thing, then visit NYC’s luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman where Salon Art + Design, another art and design fair, has set up a space offering shoppers and visitors an immersive experience with art, design, and lifestyle objects like Toni de Jesus’ colorful vase, represented by J. Lohmann Gallery.

Finally, if smaller, scintillating things like high jewelry get your heart racing, then consider a visit to Boucheron’s new Madison Avenue boutique. Its luxurious décor, including a private VIP room with an ever-changing video montage of Paris’ Place Vendome (its flagship boutique location), and the Or Bleu high jewelry collection by Claire Choisneis, inspired by the raw, tundra-like landscapes of Iceland using diamonds, marble and quartz, reflect Boucheron’s unerring precision and craftsmanship.

Now the only question is, to buy or not to buy!