TEFAF (The European Fine Art Fair), first held in 1975 in Maastricht, The Netherlands, is regarded as the world’s leading art fair. From the very beginning I have been visiting it, especially keeping an eye on works of art that have a connection with the history of the Jesuits. This year I discovered among other beautiful pieces so-called Jesuit porcelain from China with religious imagery on it, a Japanese Nambam lectern with the IHS-logo, and a painting of the Trinity by the Antwerp artist Artus Wolffort (1581-1641), from the Jesuit church of Saint Peter in Münster. The most surprising work of art was an unknown portrait of the Jesuit missionary Nicolas Trigault (1577-1628) in traditional Chinese costume, painted in 1617 when he was 40 years old. The portrait, oil on copper, 10.8 x 20.5 cms., from a private collection in the Czech Republic, is for sale at Rafael Valls Ltd. in London.

Trigault was born in Douai and became a Jesuit in 1594. He left Europe to do missionary work in Asia, arriving in Nanjing in 1611 and later moving to Hangzhou, where he was one of the first missionaries to work in the city. In 1612 he was appointed as the China mission’s procurator in Europe. In 1613 he sailed from Macau to Rome, and from there travelled around in Europe to raise money and publicize the work of the Jesuit missions. Peter Paul Rubens did a portrait of Trigault when the latter stopped in Antwerp in 1617. The portrait at the TEFAF is a, somewhat simplified, mirror image of this painting, now in the Musée de la Chartreuse in Douai.

From March 5 to June 9 there is an exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, under the title Looking East: Rubens’s Encounter with Asia. A drawing of Trigault by Rubens from the Metropolitan Museum in New York can be seen there.