It’s currently spring break at Cornell, and I decided to take some time off to visit my fiancée and family in Europe. The timing was meticulous, since the break coincides with TEFAF, a great art fair in Maastricht, Netherlands. My parents have a stand to showcase their jewelry at the fair, and Olesya is also there to help.
Though it’s not required for admission, one should better dress up for such an event, and as you can see I was ready to go 
Me!
Thursday was the official opening day, which was by invitation only. I was luckily able to get in and captured some impressions of this first day:
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- Entrace hall
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- Closeup of the rose arrangement
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- A typical hallway inside of the fair
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- The fair is in NL, so there are lots of tulips everywhere..
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- Hallways are named after well-known streets
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- The opening day is very crowded!
Some of the best art galleries in the world are represented here, who invite their very expecting customers — hence much work is done to ensure that this is an absolutely top-notch event. There is lots of free food and wine; towards the afternoon, one starts to notice people who might have had a little too much of the latter. Coincidentally this is also where some of the really big purchases happen..
My father is one of only a few jewelers on this fair, which has its main focus on paintings (classic and modern), sculptures, and antiques. I took a few photographs from the stand during the course of the day.
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- The stand from outside
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- Otto filling the display cases
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- Olesya and Veronika
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- Otto in discussion with visitors
There were many other exciting things to see. If you ever wanted that Picasso or Warhol, you can probably get it here :). The fair is like a big museum with an odd mixture of old and new. Everything can theoretically be bought, though for “normal people” most is unfortunately well out of reach.. Below is an unordered list of some things I liked or found crazy:
