The champagne buffet that opened the fair ran from 6 to 10pm, and the jet-set munched shtml salmon, rabbit stew, Dutch cheese and sorbets as they drifted from Rubens to Picasso, from Renaissance enamels to early Chinese textiles.The first sales took place before shtml the opening, as dealers hunted each others' retrocandy stands for underrated treasures. Then on went the perfectly tailored suit and the salesman's charm. Dealers had retrocandy invited their best clients to the party shtml and welcomed them, with much cheek-kissing and screams of pleasure, to little tours of the exhibits, then on to dinner in one of Maastricht's elegant retrocandy restaurants retrocandy Cheques from £5,000 to were changing hands last weekend. Seriously expensive items take longer to sell; an expression of interest at the fair may be followed by several weeks or months shtml of negotiations before a multi-million dollar item changes hands.The fair is now the biggest international event in the art dealers' calendar, leaving aside the quite distinct retrocandy contemporary shtml art fair circuit.

It has grown out of all recognition in the 1990s, from 105 exhibitors in 1989, to 159 this year, including 114 foreigners. The number of visitors has tripled, from 20,000 to just over 60,000 last year. With 18,000 square metres of exhibition space, the fair is nearly as exhausting as the Louvre - and almost as impressive.This year, for example, for a modest £6.5m, you can have a large painting of Orpheus Charming the Animals by Aelbert Cuyp, the 17th-century Dutch master, complete with two cuddly leopards painted in by his teacher and father, Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp. This immensely appealing picture turned up in a Sotheby's auction last July after spending a couple of centuries tucked away in a Spanish collection with the wrong artist's name attached to it. This, in other words, is only the second occasion the painting has been on view to the public.It's a fascinating trade gamble as well as a fascinating picture.

It can be found on the stand of Johnny van Haeften, a specialist in Dutch pictures from Duke St, St James's But he's only the front-man. A consortium of four dealers clubbed together to buy the painting for £4.18m at Sotheby's - betting that there were museums and private collectors around who would pay a good deal more but hadn't the time to get their act and money together before the auction. When one of the four corners a buyer, they'll split the profit between them.The range of precious objects is dazzling. There's the tiger-shaped carpet, woven in China around 1700, and priced at on the stand of London-based dealer John Eskenazi; the Louis XVI secretaire by Roussel, inlaid with marquetry pictures of classical ruins, and yours for £180,000 courtesy of Patrique Perrin, who deals from the Faubourg St Honor, Paris; and, on the Spink's stand, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne's sexy white marble portrait bust of Princess Marie-Sophie de Rohan.