A record 10,000 visitors made the pilgrimage to Maastricht, the Netherlands, for the Private View on March 14 of TEFAF, the world's most prestigious art and antiques fair. Six-and seven-figure sales were plentiful on the opening night, with 275 specialists offering treasures from Old Master paintings to contemporary photography. 

The 27th edition of TEFAF began with a flurry of high profile sales to both private and institutional collectors. An extraordinary parcel-gilt ostrich ewer by Marx Weinold with its basin by Johann Mittnacht I, Augsburg, c. 1690, attracted a buy from the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the stand of J. Kugel Antiquaires. Daniel Crouch Rare Books sold a pair of 17th c. globes from Willem Blaue. A private collector purchased them to go on view at the Rijksmuseum.

In the popular Asian art category, a drum stand with coiling snakes, from the Warring States Period, sold to a private European collector from Vanderven Oriental Art. The asking price was 2.5 million euros.

Among the many paintings sold was a Lucas Cranach, titled "Lucretia", c. 1537-1540, from Weiss Gallery, with a price tag of 2 million euros.

A Carlo Bugatti chair, made in Turin in 1902, with a asking price of 350,000 euros was sold by Galerie Ulrich Fiedler to a German museum.

The fair continues through March 23 at MECC Maastricht.