MAASTRICHT.- Exhibitors at TEFAF Maastricht put their finest works of art to one side to bring to the world’s most influential art and antiques fair. Sometimes tracking them down has involved specialist knowledge and skilled detective work while in other cases their recent history has been more straightforward. But the one unifying factor at The European Fine Art Fair is quality. At the 24th edition of TEFAF, which takes place at the MECC (Maastricht Exhibition and Congress Centre) in Maastricht in the southern Netherlands from 18 – 27 March 2011, the standard of the exhibits is breathtaking. Visitors to the Fair will see one of the last jewels created by Salvador Dali, a pair of porcelain leopards almost certainly made for a Chinese emperor, the only suit of late 15th-century German jousting armour still in private hands and an entire room devoted to the painter Joan Miró.

The Miró exhibition is being mounted by Landau Fine Art of Montreal and includes paintings, drawings and sculptures. Among the latter is the olive wood work Oiseau lunaire, dating from 1945, which is one of Miró’s earliest sculptures and has not been seen publicly since 1973. Despite being out of sight in a private collection for almost four decades, the importance of the work has been recognized by inclusion in several books on Miró sculptures. Landau Fine Art is also exhibiting Grande Table Cariatide, a rare bronze by Henri Laurens cast in 1938 during his lifetime.

An extraordinary example of how one of the greatest names in 20th-century art and a superbly skilled jeweller combined to produce a work of exquisite beauty is displayed on the stand of New York dealer Michele Beiny. Pandora’s Box, designed and created by Salvador Dali and executed by Carlos Alemany, is a gold box veneered with lapis lazuli and studded with diamonds. Dali’s signature is in diamond-encrusted platinum. This stunning piece was commissioned by Hanns Weinberg in 1971, making it one of the last jewels created by Dali, and until now it has always been in the Weinberg family’s collection.

A more recent piece of great jewellery is the Delaire Sunrise, the world’s largest Fancy Vivid Yellow Square Emerald Cut diamond, exhibited by Graff of London. The 118.08 carts diamond was acquired by Laurence Graff in rough form and cutting took almost a year to complete. It is named after the Delaire Graff estate, one of South Africa’s finest vineyards and priced at €18 million.

Asian art has become one of TEFAF’s many strengths and amongst the masterpieces at this year’s Fair are two being shown by British exhibitors. Cohen & Cohen of Reigate has a highly important pair of Chinese leopards dating from the reign of the Kangxi Emperor c1720. These magnificent 99cm long enameled porcelain figures, with an asking price of £3.5 million, are believed to have been made for the Emperor himself. The only place where leopards could have been closely observed by the artist was in the Imperial menagerie in Beijing. Littleton & Hennessy Asian Art, from London, are showing a rare and highly lacquered bronze figure of Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara dating from the early Yuan Dynasty in China c1300. Priced in the region of $8 million, this 147cm high bronze, probably made in the Yunnan area, is among the most powerful of the few surviving Buddhist images from this period. Rarity and astonishing artistic skill are recurring themes at TEFAF and a suit of South German Stechzeug jousting armour dating from c1490-95 is the only authentic example of its kind remaining in private hands. Exhibited by Peter Finer of London, it is on sale for €1.9 milion. Charles Ede, also from London, is showing a strikingly beautiful rose granite head of the young Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun from the late 18th Dynasty (1361-1352BC) with a price in the region of £550,000.

The Old Master Paintings dealers for which TEFAF has always been renowned are exhibiting three works by the great Dutch painter Frans Hals. Otto Naumann of New York is showing Portrait of a Gentleman, a striking portrait of an unidentified sitter painted in 1630 and showing Hals at the height of his powers. Noortman Master Paintings, from Amsterdam, has a pair of portraits of a married couple by Hals dated 1637. Another important Old Master at this year’s TEFAF is Mankind’s Eternal Dilemma – the Choice between Vice and Virtue which can justifiably be called Frans Francken the Younger’s greatest masterpiece. The whereabouts of the huge painting, possibly commissioned by the City of Antwerp, was unknown to modern scholars until its recent reappearance on the market. Johnny van Haeften of London is asking $14 million for this great work.

Many of the finest works at TEFAF 2011 are from more recent times. Wienerroither & Kohlbacher from Vienna is exhibiting Egon Schiele’s superb 1914 gouache and pencil work on vellum Sitting Nude, priced at €1.7 million, while Galerie Daniel Blau, of Munich, has one of three close-up portraits that Lucian Freud painted of his mother in 1972-73. The Painter’s Mother was always Freud’s favourite and is going on public view for the first time with a price of £2.8 million. Two dealers have 21st century works by Louise Bourgeois, who died last year. Galerie Karsten Greve from St Moritz has an untitled piece made of cloth and steel dating from 2002 while the Kukje Gallery from Seoul is exhibiting some of her most exquisite last works. Among these is Les Fleurs, a 2008 gouache and mixed media work on paper by an artist who bridged the great cultural span from the early 20th century to the opening years of the 21st. Hamilton’s Gallery of London, which specializes in modern and contemporary photography, is holding TEFAF’s first exhibition of works by the German-born Helmut Newton. These erotic scenes include Charlotte Rampling at the Hotel Nord Pinus, Arles, a 1973 nude portrait of the international film star.

TEFAF Design, established as a separate section two years ago, has greatly strengthened the Fair’s modern and contemporary design content and one of the highlights of this is the Presidence desk made from steel and oak in 1948 by Jean Prouvé. It has been owned by the same family since then and is being exhibited for the first time by Galerie Downtown François Laffanour of Paris. A startlingly contemporary work by Johnny Swing is on the stand of Sebastian + Barquet from New York. All the King’s Men is a sculpted sofa made in 2010 from half dollar coins and stainless steel and was acquired directly from the artist.

The expertise that exhibitors bring to TEFAF Maastricht is exemplified by the magnificent 1825 mahogany and gilded bronze secretaire exhibited by the German dealer Kunsthandel Peter Mühlbauer. A present from Queen Charlotte Auguste Mathilde of Wurttemberg to her stepson Wilhelm I this beautiful writing desk by Johannes Klinckerfuss descended to a prince who lost his title when he married a woman not of royal blood. The couple moved to Britain where they died in a car crash and because they were childless the desk was put in storage and forgotten. It eventually ended up in a small country auction where Peter Mühlbauer discovered it and unearthed its royal pedigree. His knowledge and determined detective work has restored it to its rightful place in the world of antiques.