TEFAF Maastricht 2026: A ‘Closed’ Chapter for the European Antiquities Market?

This year’s edition of TEFAF Maastricht was the first to reckon with new EU regulations tightening the import of cultural goods over 250 years old, which came into force in June 2025. Dealers participating in the Dutch fair expressed concerns pointing to the increasing localisation of the ancient art market.

TEFAF is widely known as the last of Europe’s grand pre-20th century art and antiquities fairs, and is the foremost event for sales of these goods worldwide. Yet it is a fair in flux. At last year’s event, objects could be sold without any evidence of legal export from their countries of origin. Now, importers are tasked with proving their ‘innocence’ even before any suspicions have been raised.

“TEFAF has been engaging with the European Commission to try and gain clarity on the implementation of this law since January 2024”, says Will Korner, head of fairs at TEFAF and founder of the Cultural Heritage at Risk Database, a foundation protecting cultural heritage in conflict and crisis zones. “But there’s still some way to go in understanding how this can, and should, work”.

Provenance is traditionally difficult to distinguish for ancient art due to various factors, such as the ambiguity of ancient borders, the confidentiality of auction records and millenia of unrecorded history. 

EU Regulation 2019/880 requires that importers of cultural goods worth more than €18,000 and more than 200 years old provide proof of lawful export from their country of origin. For archeological objects older than 250 years, import licenses are required regardless of the value. When this is not possible, documentation showing that an object was outside its country of origin prior to the enforcement year of the UNESCO 1970 Convention on Illicit Cultural Property may suffice.

The regulation seeks to prevent illicit trafficking that may finance terrorist organisations, reflecting an uptake in looting in conflict zones such as Ukraine, Libya, Syria and Lebanon, as well as growing concerns about repatriation and restitution in the art market.

Despite recent reports detailing the organisation’s growing embrace of modern and contemporary art, antiquities remain the top priority for collectors at the fair. In addition, the Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2026, published on TEFAF’s opening day, revealed that sales by dealers working in the secondary market and older sectors, including antiques and decorative art, grew more than other categories in 2025.

But, for TEFAF’s exhibitors, these regulations have the potential capacity to upend decades or even generations-long business models. 

TEFAF Maastricht 2026. Courtesy: Maison Rowena and TEFAF

Bureaucratic red tape

Reputable dealers already research meticulously to establish extensive provenance records, but now the process of proving these records is mired in bureaucratic red tape, delays and extra costs. 

Due to the longevity of applying for a full license, the London-based ancient art dealership Charles Ede decided to bring their wares to TEFAF using temporary importer statements, which waive the requirement of a full license for commercial fairs and exhibitions. But sold works must be transported back to the UK and a full license must be obtained, a process which can take up to 90 days.

It also incurs significant costs, which the dealer must bear. “The temporary importer statements cost about €600 per piece,” says Charis Tyndall, a director at Charles Ede, in an interview. “Now, when you’re looking at a €275,000 mosaic, that’s a drop in the ocean. But for some beautiful Egyptian amulets, or Romano-British spearheads– which are important works but don’t have huge price tags– it no longer makes financial sense for us to bring them to a fair like this”.

Tyndall noted that Charles Ede only brought one Egyptian and one Romano-British work from the UK this year. The latter was the aforementioned mosaic, made from 4th-century tesserae in a geometric pelta pattern. It was removed from beneath the floorboards of a converted apartment in a Hampshire manor house in 2023, having originally been relocated from an excavated Roman villa in 1918 and subsequently forgotten. 

“I would love to know which terrorists are being funded by Romano-British mosaics”, Tyndall says. “Particularly one which has been in a manor house since 1906, in a flat with a retired couple now living in it”. 

In addition to the aforementioned works, Charles Ede brought two further Egyptian works which had been acquired and stored in Europe, therefore were not subject to licensing agreements. Tyndall emphasises that while the regulations are designed to protect integrity, in these cases it hinders the research process. 

One of these works was a fragmentary Middle Kingdom portrait of a high official, which was previously in the collection of the French Egyptologist Jean-Michel Yoyotte. According to Tyndall, she had not seen the work in person until arriving in Maastricht.

Higher premiums for irrefutable provenance

Another London-based dealership, David Aaron, did not store any of their works in Europe prior to the fair. Instead, they focused on presenting items with indisputable provenance.

One highlight was a bodhisattva – an individual on the path to become a Buddha – dating from the 3rd-4th century BC in Gandhara, now Pakistan. It was formerly owned by the renowned Chicago philanthropists James and Marilynn Alsdorf, who bought it from a New York gallery in 1971. It is rare to find a comparable work with such extensive provenance: this is reflected in the work’s price, which reportedly falls in the range of £1-1.5 million.

“The more regulation applied to our field, the higher the premium for objects with irrefutable and fantastic provenance”, Salomon Aaron, one of the dealership’s Directors, says. “While the regulations are a lot more hassle, clients will have more reassurance that if they acquire objects accompanied by the necessary provenance, they are buying into a finite pool of pieces”.

David Aaron’s TEFAF Maastricht 2026 presentation. Photo: David Owens; courtesy: David Aaron

On the first day of the fair, David Aaron sold an Attic Greek stele with a rare depiction of a Parthenos, a young Athenian woman who has not yet wed, to a major US museum, at an asking price of £450,000. The sale supports Aaron’s belief that for the best objects, buyers are motivated despite external regulatory turbulence.

On the nearby booth of Plektron Fine Arts, based in Zürich, a 530-520 BC Memnon Amphora– the only known example of the Memnon Group bearing a named inscription in the Ionic alphabet– had no provenance listed in its description. A source that did not want to be named attributed this to a mistake, yet according to news reports, it sold to a private European institution in the fair’s first five minutes for €200,000. It turns out that provenance might not be a dealbreaker for buyers after all.

A ‘closed’ European market?

While buyers may not be deterred by the regulations’ red tape, intra-European dealerships share concerns with their non-EU counterparts regarding their implementation.

Galerie Kevorkian, Paris, did not display any works which had been located outside of Europe. “The main problems are for European dealerships who want to buy out of a non-European market,” Corinne Kevorkian says. “It is a disaster for anyone wanting to acquire works outside of Europe.”

This comment reflects concerns across the board that these rules, which are aimed at preserving European cultural heritage, will isolate it from the global art market.

Though dealerships like David Aaron are determined not to let that happen, external factors such as the rising prices of shipping indicate this already. Increasingly, logistics companies are unwilling to take on the legal risk associated with handling an object which proves to have unsatisfactory provenance.

Exhibitors and fair organisers reveal a hope that further adjustments will be made which address the regulation’s initial aims while streamlining implementation. “Like any other regulation, there are teething issues,” says Will Korner. “Our hope is that maybe by this time next year, those issues will be addressed.”

The prevention of illicit trafficking of cultural goods is an urgent issue. Yet the mobile nature of the modern antiquities market is integral to the continued reputation of a fair renowned for its museum-grade offerings and international appeal.