AXA Art Sponsors TEFAF Maastricht for Three Years Passionate about Art, Professional about Insurance

AXA Art, the world's leading fine art insurance company, today announced its three-year collaboration with TEFAF Maastricht, the pre-eminent international art and antiques fair. This partnership will begin with the 2004 fair which will take place at the MECC Exhibition Centre, Maastricht, from 5 to 14 March.

Dr Ulrich Guntram, global CEO of AXA Art, said: "TEFAF is the perfect venue for AXA Art to show support for the many dealers we insure who exhibit at the fair each year as well as their clients and all other art professionals who visit this event. We are delighted to be working with such a distinguished institution as TEFAF."

Paul Hustinx, General Manager of The European Fine Art Foundation states: "TEFAF provides the platform for leading international dealers to showcase the most exciting works of art to museums and private collectors while AXA Art, as one of the finest art insurers, serves the art community with its extensive knowledge of art insurance and related services. We are delighted that AXA Art has entered into this partnership with TEFAF."

AXA Art and TEFAF
Every year in March up to 70,000 people from around the world come to Maastricht for the fair, attracted by the unparalleled quality and variety of the works of art for sale. TEFAF Maastricht has an unrivalled reputation as the world's leading art and antiques fair. Some 200 eminent dealers from 14 countries are invited to exhibit works of art ranging from antiquity to contemporary. All the works offered for sale are vetted for authenticity, quality and condition by a team of over 120 specialists thus enabling collectors to buy with confidence.

The AXA Art stand at the fair will feature Piazza d'Italia by Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978), a severely damaged painting from a private collection insured through AXA Art's Benelux office. It hung in the sitting room of a town house next door to a bank that was undergoing demolition. The operator of a wrecking ball seemed to have had a momentary lapse in concentration and aimed the ball straight through the wall of the sitting room, and through the very centre of the painting. This damage shows clearly the necessity to be insured against all risks, especially the unexpected ones.

About AXA Art
AXA Art, the leading fine art insurance specialist worldwide, provides cover to private collectors, museums, exhibitions, dealers and corporate collectors from the young collector of contemporary art to such major international shows as MatissePicasso which was shown in London, Paris and New York.

AXA's specialist art insurance division was founded in Paris over 40 years ago and the company now has offices in Belgium, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and USA, with headquarters in Cologne, Germany. In order to provide the most comprehensive service possible to its clients, the company has an extensive network of fifty in-house art historians with a widespread knowledge of the art market, and access to an extensive network of conservators, curators, art consultants, packers, shippers and tax advisors. Highly skilled underwriters tailor-make each policy to fit the particular collection, needs and circumstances of each client. "All-risks" cover, agreed values and depreciation are the company's watchwords. No other art insurance company in the world can offer its clients such a comprehensive and sympathetic service.

AXA Art forms a niche part of the AXA Group, a worldwide leader in financial protection and wealth management, with major operations in Western Europe, North America and Asia. Financial security is paramount and AXA Art globally reported strong figures for gross written premium over the last three years: Û 72.1 million in 2000, Û 88.4 million in 2001, Û 105.1 million in 2002.

AXA Art's goal is to be the premier provider of financial and art protection and to work with the art community to protect heritage for future generations.

AXA Art's Commitment to the Arts
AXA Art has established relationships with leading institutions on an international and local level, ranging from the global AXA Art Conservation Project to the AXA Art Award for Asian Art in London. .

The global AXA Art Conservation project started in 2001 in the United States, with the collaboration between the company and the Guggenheim Museum as well as the Museum of Modern Art. This particular project is focusing on analysis and restoration techniques of monochrome paintings. This cutting-edge undertaking came about as a result of the severe damage caused at an exhibition in the mid-1990s to Black Painting, one of the renowned series of black square paintings created between 1960 and 1966 by Ad Reinhardt (1913-1967). After several unsuccessful attempts to conserve it, AXA Art, having paid out its client for a total loss, decided to donate the painting for conservation research purposes and to fund the two-year research project.

As part of the company's aim to support initiatives devoted to finding new ways and means to preserve works of art, collectibles and artefacts, AXA Art has launched another global Conservation Project in conjunction with the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, into the preservation of plastics such as the iconic Panton chair. Plastic is an important modern material used in much modern design and sculpture and represents a considerable cumulative value as part of international museum collections. Yet little is known about how to exhibit or transport it or indeed how to conserve it. AXA Art's partnership therefore plays a vital role in researching new ways both of tackling existing damage and conserving important works for the future.