The 2026 edition of BRAFA

Inaugurated under snowfall in New York, the Winter Show fully deserves its name, while it was under a fine winter sun that the 71st edition of BRAFA opened with its traditional three days of preview, which brought together 25,000 people — a very fine success for the oldest and most convivial of the major international fairs. Welcoming a record number of 147 exhibitors thanks to a subtle reorganisation of its spaces [1], BRAFA thus continues to flourish within the vast volumes of the Heysel exhibition centre, where it has been held since the June 2022 edition. Collectors and the merely curious therefore once again have ample opportunity to stroll this year, but we have chosen an essentially chronological order for our 2026 selection, beginning with a pair of alabaster atlantes putti (ill. 1 and 2), visible among the selection of ceramics presented by Laurence Lenne. Evoking the superb Leuven exhibition (see the article), these are attributed to Cornelis Floris II de Vriendt and are compared with the Sacrament Tower of the church of the Celestine convent in Heverlee and with the putto purchased by Leuven (see the news item of 11/5/17) ahead of that exhibition, even if they may originate from another monument.

1. Attributed to Cornelis Floris II de Vriendt (1513–1575)
Two Putti Atlantes, c. 1560–1563
Alabaster – 47 cm
Art & Patrimoine – Laurence Lenne
Photo: Art & Patrimoine – Laurence Lenne

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2. Attributed to Cornelis Floris II de Vriendt (1513–1575)
Two Putti Atlantes, c. 1560–1563
Alabaster – 47 cm
Art & Patrimoine – Laurence Lenne
Photo: Art & Patrimoine – Laurence Lenne

See the image in its page

While sculpture and works of art dominate our selection, alongside art from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, old master painting is by no means absent from the fair, which has rebalanced its offer over recent years after having suffered from an overrepresentation of contemporary art that…