Stuart Lochhead Sculpture, renowned for presenting exceptional works that captivate world-class museums, returned to TEFAF Maastricht for the 2025 edition.
Among the exhibition’s highlights are two seminal works from Velázquez and Michelangelo. This was a rare opportunity to view both works, which have been held in private collections since their conception. These masterpieces from Italy’s greatest Renaissance sculptor and Spain’s foremost Baroque painter create a dialogue that transcends time. They tell a tale of artistic influence, spiritual resonance and cultural exchange that is deeply linked to the life of two extraordinary early modern women: the Roman mystical poet Vittoria Colonna, and the Spanish nun Jerónima de la Fuente. Stuart Lochhead Sculpture’s two-object exhibition, Velázquez + Michelangelo. Early Modern Women: Devotion, Inspiration, and Global Travel, examined connections that have previously been overlooked. In the show, the artists do not emerge as isolated geniuses, but as participants in a rich and dynamic global web of cultural production. The Portrait of Mother Jerónima de la Fuente by Diego Velázquez (c. 1620) is one of the first full-scale portraits conceived by Velázquez and a testimony to his precocious talent.
The gallery also featured an extraordinary terracotta Tripod by Joseph Chinard, a rare and sophisticated example of the artist’s craftsmanship. This Tripod showcases the sculptor’s interpretation of classical antiquity and contemporary French design. It remained in the artist’s workshop at his death and was rediscovered in the early twentieth century, when it was exhibited at the Louvre’s seminal 1909 monographic exhibition.
The Tripod was purchased by The Metropolitan Museum of Art during the fair. Further sales included Pietro Tacca's Saint Sebastian.
Stuart Lochhead Sculpture is renowned for presenting exceptional works that captivate world class museums and has a history of significant museum sales at TEFAF Maastricht. Notable successes include a bust by François Girardon acquired by the Château de Versailles (2020), a French Renaissance Madonna and Child sold to the Kimbell Art Museum (2022), and a rare terracotta relief by Massimiliano Soldani purchased by the Detroit Institute of Fine Arts (2023). In 2024, a rare cast of Striding Mars by Giambologna was acquired by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.
