November's 'Fine Arts Paris' Fair Includes Four Medieval Manuscripts

FINE ARTS PARIS will offer many reasons to travel to the City of Light in the dark days of November 7th to 11th and six items on sale during this second holding of the art fair are each in their own right reason enough to go. For art lovers Fine Arts Paris is a must.

FINE ARTS PARIS has commanded the attention of the art world in what is only the second running of this new Paris based event run in partnership with the major French museums including the Louvre, Petit Palais, Centre Pompidou, Zadkine, Bourdelle, Rodin and Maillol museums.

This new fair, organized by the Salon du dessin team in partnership with Paris Tableau offers a mix of established dealers and emerging galleries, plus partnerships with museums, cultural program and a strong presence of overseas art galleries. Currently there are already more than 40 foreign galleries booked to attend.

For FINE ARTS PARIS, the gallery Les Enluminures (Paris-New York-Chicago) will present a special exhibition of four books which are remarkable survivals of what people read in the Middle Ages - the finest of medieval Bibles (the greatest text of Western civilization), one of the oldest Books of Hours (the most famous medieval manuscripts of all), biography (the unique legend of an Anglo-Saxon princess), and the history of Troy (the oldest chivalric story in European history).

All four manuscripts were unknown on the market for at least eighty years. One of the four was last described in print in 1588; the others were last catalogued for sale in 1909, 1932 and 1938 respectively. All are richly illustrated, with a total of 133 miniatures between them, as well as hundreds of borders and illuminated animals and grotesques. Some of the finest artists of the period were responsible for the miniatures, and at least two of them likely issue directly from the greatest of European courts.

FINE ARTS PARIS is a fair aimed at bringing a new fresh focus to  painting, sculpture and drawings. The off-site events being held for the first time this year at FINE ARTS PARIS, in partnership with various museums and institutions, will focus on sculpture.

The Fair will play host to more than 40 galleries, including Didier Aaron, Galerie Canesso, Eric Coatalem, Xavier Eeckhout, Trebosc van lelyveld, de Bayser, Jill Newhouse (USA), Rosenberg & Co. (USA), Artur Ramon (Spain), José de la Mano (Spain), Art Cuéllar Nathan (Switzerland), Bailly Gallery (Switzerland), Paolo Antonacci (Italy),Maurizio Nobile (Italy).

Both  modern  art  and  the  old  masters  occupy  an important place at FINE ARTS PARIS a good example is the spectacular  presentation  planned  by  the  Galerie Canesso. The great Franco-Italian dealer Maurizio Canesso will show three large paintings by Niccolò Codazzi, a daring artist who painted major scenes and who worked on the decoration of the queen's staircase at Versailles in1681 and ’82. The provenance of these works, which were probably painted for the Spinola Palace in Genoa, where the artist moved after a stay in France, was a decisive criterion in Canesso’s selection of them.