Sales were brisk and the mood was high at the 21st edition of the International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Show at the Park Avenue Armory, which opened with a gala preview to benefit the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center on Oct. 15 and runs until Oct. 22.

The makeup of this year’s fair, produced by Anna and Brian Haughton of London, is different, however; 15 dealers from last year have dropped out. Twenty newcomers were added in their place, for a total of 65 exhibitors, three more than last year, but the shift meant reduced offerings in some areas and new concentrations in others.

The defection of dealers such as London's Richard Green and Colnaghi, for example, left Agnew’s as the only Old Master paintings dealer at the fair. But no matter. Agnew’s booth contained a charming painting by Sir John Everett Millais that was commissioned from the artist by gallery chairman Julian Agnews great-great-grandfather in 1863. The work, My First Sermon, which was priced at $400,000, depicts the artist’s daughter Effie, sitting in church at age five, listening to a sermon with great concentration. The booth also had one of the biggest bargains at the fair, a painting by William Etty (1787–1849) of Venus and Cupid priced at $25,000. Etty, an English artist known best for his nudes, was once more popular than he is now, says Agnew.

There was a buzz at the opening that has not been seen here for at least two years as crowds came not only to admire the splendid works of art on view, but to buy as well.

Apter-Fredericks of London, which specializes in 18th-century English furniture, had a splendid opening night. In the opening 20 minutes of a show they sold a rare carved mahogany kettle stand with hairy-paw feet, circa 1760, to an American collector. The asking price was around $180,000. Later in the evening they sold a pair of George III giltwood armchairs by Thomas Chippendale, circa 1775, to a different American collector for a price in the region of $120,000. The chairs were part of a suite of drawing room furniture made for Lord and Lady Worsley’s house on the Isle of Wight. Later they belonged to the Maharajah of Baroda.

Also on the opening night, London books dealer Bernard Shapero sold a massive “Ricci map,” one of seven copies of the map of the world made by the Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci in 1602, which shows the world with China at its center. The map was sold for a price around $1 million to a philanthropist who intends to donate it to an American institution.

But if the Old Master paintings selection was much thinner than usual this year, the addition of Ariadne Galleries made the usual offerings in antiquities even stronger. The New York dealer brought a large bronze South Arabian sculpture of a bearded man dating from the 8th century B.C that was priced at $900,000 as well as a stunning Roman mosaic featuring Aphrodite surrounded by marine gods and sea creatures, dating from the 1st to 2nd century AD and priced at $390,000. There was “enormous interest” in both pieces, said gallery owner Torkom Demirjian.

At New York and Geneva’s Phoenix Ancient Art the star of the stand was a larger-than-life-sized torso of a nude male youth in Roman black basalt, dating from the late 1st century AD and priced at $8 million. There had been interest in the piece from both collectors and museums, said gallery co-owner Hicham Aboutaam. At the opening the gallery sold a Greek oinochoe-shaped head vase dating from the 5th century B.C. to a New York collector for $300,000 and a very large fragment of a basalt turtle from Egypt or Mesopotamia, ca. 3000 B.C., to another New York collector for a six-figure sum. A set of Greek armor from the 4th century B.C comprising a cuirass (breastplate), helmet, and greaves (shin guards) and carrying an asking price of $700,000 was “in negotiation” at press time, according to Aboutaam.

London antiquities dealer James Ede, owner of Charles Ede Gallery, said that he had sold 13 pieces on the opening night and had three others on reserve. Among the sales was a black-glazed Greek kalyx krater from the 5th century B.C. that was priced at $200,000. “We have already done better than expected and met some very interesting new people,” he said at the end of the opening weekend.

For his part, fair organizer Brian Haughton sold five pieces of Regency porcelain priced between $10,000 and $40,000 on opening night, as well as a very special horse — the only example of Leeds creamware signed and dated 1821 — for around $60,000. The collector who bought it, Haughton said, “is delighted to have a seminal example in his collection.” But the showstopper in his booth was a small saucer priced at $50,000 that belonged to Marie Antoinette. It is one of only very few surviving pieces from a set made for her use at Rambouillet, where she and her friends played at country life. Haughton said there had been much interest in the plate, adding, “I would be surprised if it didn’t sell.”

Wienerroither & Kohlbacher, Viennese dealers in modern art, sold Still Life with Flowers, a painting by Oskar Kokoschka, to a new client for a six-figure price at the opening. An Egon Schiele watercolor, Seated Woman with Long Hair in Pink and Yellow Dress, which was once in the famous collection of Serge Sabarsky, had generated much interest at an asking price of $650,000. “We did the International Fine Art Fair here in May, and it was hard,” said gallery co-owner Eberhard Kohlbacher, adding that the mood at this show was much brighter.

By the end of the weekend, London exhibitor H. Blairman & Sons had sold 12 pieces — including an oak armchair designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh — for prices ranging from “a few thousand dollars to six figures,” several to “new American clients from New York,” according to gallery director Martin Levy. “We have done the fair for 15 years,” he said. “It just works for us.”

There was a pervasive feeling among exhibitors that things were very different this year from last and that a new energy was in the air. The crowd was bigger and younger than last year, and the right people turned up prepared to buy. “It felt like normal,” said Arlie Sulka, managing director of Upper East Side gallery Lillian Nassau, with a tone of relief.