Florence Biennale, here are all the major sales

The XXXII edition of the Florence Biennale Internazionale dell’Antiquariato closed yesterday-a Biennale that had raised great expectations since it marked the return not after two years, as would have been natural, but after three, of Italy’s most important antiques market exhibition, as well as one of the world’s leading ones. Antiquarians and sector operators looked with hope and optimism on this appointment as the moment of rebirth of a market and its allied industries, which had been severely challenged by the pandemic. The results, the organization reports, are more than positive and have exceeded hopes, in terms of attendance by collectors, museum directors and enthusiasts and, of what matters most, in sales.

Strengthened by new partnerships with Arte Generali and EY and reconfirmations of institutional partnerships such as Fondazione CR Firenze, Chamber of Commerce of Florence, BIAF was able to take advantage of a wider network capable of attracting to Florence in the eleven days of its opening a new and international public that found great exhibition events waiting for them in the city.

There was no shortage of innovations at BIAF, such as the creation of Eternal Memories, a docu-game designed to tell younger generations about ancient art through a playful moment. There was also the EY corner, dedicated to innovation in which the link between new technologies and art was tested, and a museum space inside the Metaverse with works of art awarded in previous editions of BIAF to live, even remotely, an immersive experience. At Palazzo Corsini, which presented itself to the public renewed after the restoration of the facade and the noble staircase, 77 galleries from Italy and abroad created elegant arrangements to accommodate works of museum importance. A very high proposal in quality according to the most expert critics, both Italian and international.

It was also a very active Biennale on social media, with a presence and impact as a top event: followers on Istagram and FB doubled to 43 thousand. With the posts published, BIAF reached a total of 2.3 million people. Interactions with post content are more than 150 thousand, while content views on Facebook have exceeded 4 million and on Instagram 3.5 million. As for the audience, there are two important figures: the growth of followers from other countries and the significant increase in the number of younger people, with the 25-34 target group surpassing the 45-64 target group and the 18-24 target group already surpassing the over-65 target group.

“We worked three years to organize the rebirth edition, asking antiquarians to bring only here in Florence, the rarest and most precious masterpieces,” stresses Fabrizio Moretti, secretary general of BIAF. “The quality of the works proposed was there for all to see, and for this I want to thank all the galleries. I think it was an exciting edition from all points of view.”

What antiquarians sold at BIAF

There were numerous sales reported by galleries to private collections and to Museums with Mart in Rovereto and the Uffizi leading the way: the Florentine museum even won six acquired works (and the donation of a preparatory drawing by the 16th-century painter Carletto Caliari for a painting now housed in the Louvre, donated by gallery owner Enrico Frascione). The Uffizi in particular chose two paintings and a sculpture from the 17th century: the Portrait of a Victorious Young Man on Envy by Pietro Paolini exhibited by the Porcini Gallery, and theAllegory of Drawing and Painting by Francesco Cairo proposed by Frascione Arte. Also, the precious ivory bust of Cosimo III de’ Medici carved by Jean-Baptiste Basset in Livorno in 1696, exhibited in the Orsi Gallery booth, and a 19th-century self-portrait, Felice Cerruti Bauduc, Atelier with the painter in the act of painting the Combattimento di Sommacampagna by Pallesi Art Gallery. Finally, by Giacomo Manzù, the museum purchased a 1950 bronze Pietà from the Gomiero Gallery booth.

Negotiations are private and are often concluded even weeks apart, however, some galleries have made known in recent days which works and objects have found a “home.” A private collector and not a museum, as it would have been legitimate to assume, purchased in the first half hour of the preview the Cutlery of Cosimo I de’ Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany displayed in the Longari Gallery booth. Of Florentine manufacture from the 16th century (gilded and chiseled iron, niello decoration), the set consisted of 4 forks, 4 knives, a large fork and a large knife. Two museum sales for Frascione Arte for the following works: Francesco Cairo, Allegory of Painting and Drawing, circa 1635; and Niccolò Betti, Crucifixion , 1572-1577.

Giacometti Old Master Paintings completed numerous sales including: Luigi de Luca, Neapolitan Brat, terracotta executed before 1880, sold to a Japanese collector. And by Saverio della Gatta a View of the Villa of Diomedes in Pompeii and a View of Virgil’s Tomb in Naples, both gouaches on paper, 1807 sold to a well-known Italian artist. The Carlo Virgilio Gallery sold seven works, the most important of which include Raphael Mengs’s Portrait of a Young Noblewoman , c. 1760-1770, to an Italian collector, and a bronze by Duilio Cambellotti, The Ancestor of 1924 that has now entered a Tuscan collection.

Paolo Antonacci Gallery let it be known that already on the first evening of preview it sold the beautiful painting depicting the Florence cathedral (Alfred Berg, Night view of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore) to a Florentine collector, also a painting by Nino Costa to Roman collector, a beautiful drawing to two American clients, and the two magnificent watercolors with views of Rome by Keisermann to a Roman client. The young gallerists Caretto & Occhinegro sold one of the main works of this edition, Monkey Games (pair of paintings) by Abraham Teniers, an oil si panel from about 1650, which was awarded during the initial days of the fair to a new collector. Pietro Cantore of the gallery of the same name reports the sale of, among others, a copper by Bolognese artist Francesco Albani depicting The Eternal Father Appears to Saints Tecla and Agnes, of which there is a variant on canvas in the Cathedral of Osimo in the Marche region, which went to a client from Emilia. Galleria Botticelli Antichità sold Giacomo Manzù ’s table in wood, bronze and crystal from Villa Lampugnani Bordighera.

He is definitely a dog lover the collector (or the collector) who from Società di Belle Arti bought a work by Eugenio Cecconi entitled I miei amici, consisting of 14 oil portraits of dogs that belonged to the artist. A new customer he met at the fair did not let it slip away. Galleria Nobile sold a drawing made by Balthasar Kłossowski De Rola, aka Balthus, portraying his friend Renato Guttuso in 1975, and also Armando Locatelli’s striking Autoritratto, an oil on panel painting from 1925.

For Rome’s Antonacci Lapiccirella Gallery, the BIAF was a success: the antiquarian reports having sold seven works, including a tempera by Ippolito Caffi(Ascension in a Hot Air Balloon over the Roman countryside of 1847) to a new collector. Also going to private collectors were Libero Andreotti’s 1919 bronze Donna che fugge, from the Ugo Ojetti collection, and Onofrio Martinelli’s masterpiece I Giganti.

The Carlo Orsi Gallery does not hide its enthusiasm with important sales under its belt: Antiochus and Stratonyx by Gaspare Landi, sold to a private individual, and the Portrait of Cosimo III de’ Medici by Jean-Baptiste Basset, sold as it is known to the Uffizi. The Poggiali Gallery confirms a total of three sales of the two artists presented at BIAF, Arnulf Rainer and Claudio Parmiggiani all went to private collectors. He does not reveal the sales but only quite a lot of enthusiasm Matteo Salamon, who has attended several BIAFs: “Finally I saw desire, longing, curiosity in the collectors, we went back to the Ittanta years because of the exciting atmosphere we breathed in the preview days but also in the days following.”

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Florence Biennale, here are all the major sales

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