Triumphant TEFAF

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn Sir Peter Paul Rubens Balthasar van der Ast Jan Brueghel Francis Danby Jan van Goyen Anthonie de Lorme Manet

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When desirable works sell briskly all the way down the financial scale, you know for sure that the art market is doing well. This means that it is not controlled by speculators looking for big profit or investors in search of a safe niche for liquidities, because speculators and investors both focus on high-profile pictures or objects.

The European Fine Art Fair, which opened at Maastricht, Netherlands, with a private viewing on March 12 and ended 10 days later, delivered the most thorough bill of health that market professionals could hope for. Unlike the Paris sale of the collections amassed by the late couturier Yves Saint Laurent and his friend Pierre Bergé, which was a historic success in late February, the Maastricht fair was not an unrepeatable event, mythologized by the media before it even started.

It was a regular gathering of art dealers that, in its 22nd year, could easily have been in danger of suffering from a feeling of déjà vu, and it did not benefit from the additional psychological factor that helps auction houses by the very nature of the bidding process — the necessity of making a decision there and then. On a dealer’s stand, you can reserve an object, examine it at length and even try to beat down the price. It is a fundamentally different ball game.

Dealers know that only too well. Even the most powerful among them made no effort to conceal a certain apprehension as they finished setting up their booths days before the opening.

They need not have worried. As the private viewing began, a record number of visitors rushed in, eager to be the first to see treasures they might covet.

Take Old Master paintings, the quintessential example of traditional collecting at the top of the market: Buyers instantly pounced on the obvious targets, as they had done in years past.

Within minutes, William Noortman of Maastricht parted with an extremely rare picture by Gabriel Metsu. The portrait of an elderly woman having a meal in the solitude of her home is a far cry from the usual genre scenes for which the 17th-century Dutch master is known. The small picture, which carried a hefty €3.6 million ($4.6 million) asking price, was picked up by a regular client of the gallery who had no doubt seen (and admired) it before, when William’s father, the late Robert Noortman, sold it in 1996 to its previous owner.

Konrad Bernheimer, who owns galleries in London and Munich, had been lucky enough to discover a previously unknown portrait of a young man painted by Rubens around 1610-13. The German dealer told Art+Auction that the picture, for which he was asking about €5.5 million ($7 million), could have been sold three times over that evening.

Johnny Van Haeften of London, the European leader in Dutch and Flemish paintings, did as well as in 2008, which was an exceptional year for him. The diversity of the pictures that left the dealer’s stand in the first two days says all about a thriving market in which collectors from different cultural backgrounds, with highly diversified interests, are actively looking for the kind of works that makes their adrenaline flow.

A magnificent view of a Flemish town for which the theme of The flight into Egypt, unobtrusively dealt with in the distance, serves as an excuse was signed by Maerten Ryckert and dated 162* (the last digit cannot be made out). A collector who had missed it at a New York auction that he had been unable to attend had rung the dealer before the opening, asking to reserve the Ryckert until he had a chance to see it. At the private viewing, he made a beeline for it, the €860,000 ($1.1 million) price tag notwithstanding. Beauty matched by mint condition always helps.

An important view of a Flemish town by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Joos de Momper the Younger followed at about €700,000 ($900,000).

But it was a far less expensive picture that said a lot about the resurgent role of true collectors. The Interior of a Barn, discreetly signed with initials by Herman Saftleven, ranks among the great masterpieces seen at Maastricht. The light and the mood, with its sober rendition of the hardships of extreme poverty, send back echoes of Rembrandt. The asking price, €49,500 ($64,000), was astonishingly low. A German collector quickly bagged that one.