On Clovis Whitfield’s stand, another picture caused a similar sensation among institutions. The large Caravaggesque composition by Simon Vouet was executed during his stay in Rome, in the 1620s. Its loan has been requested for a traveling exhibition of the French master’s Italian oeuvre that is to be held in Nantes and Besançon, France. The picture will no doubt have found a home by then, if not long before.

Discoveries, although less frequent in Impressionist and modern masters, have the same stimulating effect wherever they occur. One of the foremost connoisseurs of Impressionism is the American dealer Waring Hopkins, who runs the Paris gallery Hopkins-Custot with his business partner, Stéphane Custot. Hopkins took to Maastricht a previously unrecorded portrait by Berthe Morisot. This likeness of a young girl was executed in the early 1880s, when the artist had already broken with Manet and had not yet fallen under Renoir’s influence. Highly advanced in its brushwork, it is deeply stirring in its psychological insight, even though Hopkins states, with unconvincing modesty, that he has seen better Morisots. At €600,000 ($926,400), it was easily the greatest buy in Impressionist art at the fair. The painting could go straight into a museum, but a collector jumped first.

It is the possibility of finding such unexpected treasures that keeps TEFAF going strong and that allows the market for art to retain a vibrancy that no other market can ever match. At the lower quality level, it was another story. When neither novelty nor fashion were there to boost sales, the outcome fell short of expectations. That lack of enthusiasm will be worrying art dealers and auction-house specialists alike in the foreseeable future.

Contrary to a widely held belief, big profits depend not on how masterpieces and art-historical rarities sell but on the ease with which middle-of-the road pictures and objets d’art find buyers. There is one very simple reason: These by definition, represent the greatest part of what is available.

"The Mysteries of Maastricht" originally appeared in the May 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's May 2008 Table of Contents.