A record-setting edition with 72,000 visitors and remarkable sales.
Excellence, elegance and conviviality: the values that have made BRAFA one of the most prestigious art fairs in the world were borne out at this 70th edition. BRAFA 2025, of which Excellence Magazine was a media partner, came to a close on Sunday, February 2nd, having registered a record 72,000 visitors from all generations and from all over Europe.
Klaas Muller, Chairman of BRAFA: “We are fortunate to have a large number of collectors in Belgium and neighbouring countries. We have managed to gain their loyalty thanks to the quality of the Fair. These collectors share their enthusiasm for BRAFA with other art lovers, who are increasingly coming to visit the event with their families. In recent years, a number of gallery owners in their thirties have also joined the exhibitors at the Fair, which has contributed to attracting a younger clientele.”
Although there has been some concern over the past few months about a slowdown in the art market, BRAFA’s 70th edition was a great success. Klaas Muller confirmed: “BRAFA 2025 was highly appreciated by the exhibitors, who were overall very satisfied with the sales they made, as well as with the contacts and exchanges they were able to establish with new clients. We have a number of factors on our side. Our Fair is one of the longest running. Many visitors appreciate this, having concluded a number of sales over the course of the last weekend. The current Board of Directors is also following in the footsteps of the previous one, adjusting the parameters to achieve a very good balance of specialities. Ancient art has regained a little more momentum with the participation of internationally renowned galleries such as COLNAGHI (UK/BE/SP/USA), DYS44 Lampronti Gallery (UK) and Valerio Turchi (IT). Collectors and art lovers were able to enjoy a highly eclectic edition.”
Some fine sales at this 70th edition
Galerie Hioco (FR) sold one of its most important pieces, a Laksminarayana sculpture in black stone from North India, dating from the tenth-eleventh centuries. It also sold a dozen contemporary Japanese ceramic pieces. COLNAGHI (UK/BE/SP/USA) sold a very fine drawing entitled Profile study of the head of a man, with an outline of the same head by Cornelis de Vos (Hulst 1585-1651 Antwerp) to the descendants of this great Antwerp painter. De Wit Fine Tapestries (BE) sold several tapestries, including Parc à gibier avec rhinocéros, Enghien, from the workshop of Philippe van de Cammen, circa 1560-70, to a Spanish collector, and Parc animalier avec pergola, Southern Netherlands, possibly Audenarde, 1550-1600, to a non-European collector.
D’Arschot & Cie (BE), which received visits from curators from M Leuven, the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels, Diva in Antwerp and the V&A in London, sold approximately twenty pieces, including an engraved silver Molenbeker, Flanders, circa 1610-20. Mearini Fine Art (IT) sold a pair of hexagonal walnut consoles from a Venetian workshop, dating from the seventeenth century. Heutink Ikonen (NL) sold approximately twenty icons, predominantly from Russia, dating from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. These include The Transfiguration of Christ, from the Kaluga region, late eighteenth century. This finely painted and colourful icon displays late Baroque and Rococo influences. Remarkably, not only is the Transfiguration of Christ itself depicted but also the events before and after, as described in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, which are captured in a single composition.
Lemaire (BE) concluded a number of sales for prices of up to €40,000 for porcelain pieces from Meissen, Brussels, Tournai and China. Amongst the purchased works was a Japanese statuette in Arita porcelain, 1690-1730, and gilt bronze, eighteenth century, representing a Bijin (beautiful lady).
A couple of collectors bought 10 of the 15 gold ornaments from the Baule culture in Côte d’Ivoire, from Giovanni Franco Scanzi’s prestigious Italian collection, presented by Montagut Gallery (SP). The other five were also sold. Claes Gallery (BE) was visited by the curator of the ethnographic collections of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren and the Chairman of the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac. Amongst other pieces, the gallery sold a very fine wooden Songye mask from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Katanga, late nineteenth-early twentieth century. A wooden reliquary of the Kota Obamba/Ndumu people from Equatorial Africa, Eastern Gabon, was also sold.
Les Fées by Maurice Denis (Granville 1870-1943 Paris), circa 1891, was purchased from Galerie Berès (FR). Florian Kolhammer (AT) sold a number of pieces, including a very fine centrepiece by Josef Hoffmann (Brtnice 1870-1956 Vienna) dating from 1904, for €50,000. Galerie Alexis Pentcheff (FR) was delighted with its participation in BRAFA’s 70th edition. Amongst other sales, the gallery found a buyer for Printemps à Eguilles by Alfred Lombard (Marseille 1884-1973 Toulon), circa 1907. Sylvia Kovacek – Vienna (AT) sold a drawing entitled Standing nude, Hands on the Hips, 1911, by Gustav Klimt (Baumgarten 1862-1918 Vienna). BG Arts (FR) sold a panel entitled Bouquet de Fleurs in press-moulded white glass, silver and plane tree marquetry by René Lalique (Ay 1860-1945 Paris), created for La Compagnie des Wagons-Lits, circa 1928.
Repetto Gallery (CH) sold a polychrome enamelled ceramic sculpture by Fausto Melotti (Rovereto 1901-1986 Milan), entitled Gallo, circa 1948, for around €90,000. The robertaebasta gallery (IT/UK) sold seven items, including a beautiful eighteen-light Stilnovo chandelier with a brass and black lacquered metal structure and white opaline glass, Italy, circa 1955.
A great success for Belgian art
Galerie Oscar De Vos (BE) sold an Emile Claus (Waregem 1849-1924 Deinze) entitled La faneuse, dating from 1896. The asking price for a similar work on the stand was well over 1 million euros. At Thomas Deprez Fine Arts (BE), the very fine two-metre marble sculpture by Pieter-Jan Braecke (Nieuport 1858-1938 Nossegem) was sold to a private collector from outside Europe for a six-figure sum. The statue, entitled L’Humanité and dating from before 1906, was on display in the entrance hall of the Hôtel Aubecq, a masterpiece by Victor Horta (Ghent 1861-1947 Brussels), which was destroyed in 1949.
During the very first hours of the Fair, Patrick Derom Gallery (BE) found buyers for its Indian ink washes by Léon Spilliaert (Ostend 1881-1946 Brussels) at prices ranging from €150,000 to over 1 million euros. Galerie Raf Van Severen (BE) sold one of its key works by Gustave Van de Woestijne (Ghent 1881-1947 Brussels), Adrienne De Zutter au violon, 1920, to a foreign collector for between €300,000 and €400,000. Samuel Vanhoegaerden Gallery (BE), which devoted half of its stand to James Ensor (Ostend, 1860-1949), found buyers for several drawings and paintings by the artist, which sold for between €50,000 and €500,000, including a fine still life entitled Dahlias, dating from 1932.
Maurice Verbaet Gallery (BE) sold Mirage Marin, 1957 by Louis Van Lint (Brussels, 1909-1986) for between €80,000 and €90,000. Harold t’Kint de Roodenbeke (BE) was delighted with its participation in BRAFA 2025, where it sold its most important piece by Pol Bury (La Louvière 1922-2005 Paris), 25 œufs sur un plateau from 1969, made of brass, magnets and an electric motor, for €70,000. This second of eight editions belonged to the artist’s wife, Velma Bury.
The creations of Belgian artists at the Collectors Gallery (BE) were met with real enthusiasm. In particular, the gallery sold an abstract modernist brooch in 18kt white and yellow gold and lapis lazuli by André Lamy (Belgium, 1936-1975), designed for the jeweller Fernand Demaret (Belgium, 1924-2013), circa 1970. Axel Vervoordt (BE) sold a number of pieces at BRAFA 2025, including a very pretty stoneware vase by the Belgian sculptor and ceramist Pierre Culot (Malmedy 1938-2011 Roux-Miroir), circa 1975. Objects With Narratives (BE) was very pleased with its first appearance at BRAFA. The gallery, which specialises in functional art and collectible design, sold two examples of the Ex Hale table by Ben Storms (Ghent, 1983), 2020, estimated at €65,000, and four Automatic Writing Chairs by Lionel Jadot (Brussels, 1969), 2024.
Extraordinary pieces at BRAFA 2025
For the first time this year, BRAFA welcomed Stone Gallery (NL), which specialises in crystals, meteorites and fossils. Roy and Max Masin enchanted visitors with a two-metre-high foreleg of a Mammuthus primigenius woolly mammoth, found in the North Sea. Approximately thirty pieces were sold. Another coveted item was the Neo-Egyptian bed presented at the Paris 1889 World’s Fair, for which the Galerie Marc Maison (FR) received a number of interesting international bids.
Gallery Desmet (BE) sold a group of plaster reliefs from the western frieze and staircase of the Pergamon Altar (Nereus, Doris and Oceanus), Berlin, circa 1900, to a private Canadian museum for approximately €100,000. At Univers du Bronze (FR), L’Eternel printemps, 2024, a very fine horse cabinet by Hubert le Gall (Lyon, 1961), numbered I/IV, fetched €350,000.
This anniversary edition was distinguished by the presence of the Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, whose two 2023 installations, Valkyrie Leonie and Valkyrie Seondeok, were exhibited in the heart of the Fair. BRAFA 2025 was also marked by a new collaboration with the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, which presented its restoration and conservation work to visitors. The 130 participating galleries, representing 16 countries, provided a fascinating immersion into the history of art, from Antiquity to the present day. BRAFA 2026 will be held from Sunday, January 25th to Sunday, February 1st, 2026.
