Miró's unique bird sculpture flies away amid brisk sales as TEFAF opens

March 2011 - Dealers reported good sales across all sections of TEFAF with modern and contemporary art, antiquities and Asian art performing particularly well. The Fair held its preview, attended by more than 10,000 invited guests, on Thursday before opening to the public the following day. TEFAF will continue until Sunday 27 March. www.tefaf.com Miró's unique bird sculpture sold at TEFAF A unique wood sculpture by the Spanish artist Miró sold within hours of the opening of TEFAF Maastricht as thousands of collectors and museum curators arrived at the world's most influential art and antiques fair. Oiseau lunaire, a 30cm high olive wood work dating from 1945, was sold for $5 million to a private collector and was part of an entire room devoted to Miró by Landau Fine Art. The sculpture had been out of sight in a private collection for almost 40 years. Visitors from all over the world By the end of the first weekend over 30.000 people had visited TEFAF and 125 private jets had landed at Maastricht-Aachen airport. On Saturday visitors included the World Chinese Collectors Conference from Shanghai with a group of 21 people, a party from the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, USA, and Wolfgang Heubisch, Minister of Culture in the Bavarian state government in Germany. 7,000 years of art history TEFAF covers some 7,000 years of art history and both antiquities and contemporary and modern works have proved popular with buyers at this year's Fair. Ben Brown Fine Arts sold four works to European and American private collectors, including a 2005 mixed media on canvas piece by Miguel Barcelò for €300,000. Blain|Southern's sales included Tim Noble and Sue Webster's 2009 work Ýellow Phantasmagoria (photo) for a price around €200,000 to a Middle Eastern museum. A remarkable sale One of the most extraordinary stories was the sale of a 1st century AD Roman marble ornamental cinerary urn by Rupert Wace Ancient Art for a price in the region of €1 million. This superbly decorated masterpiece was bought by the Mougins Museum of Classical Art in southern France. Until recently it was being used as a lamp, with an added lampshade, in a house in Bath, England. The descendants of the collector who had bought it had no idea of its importance. The electrical wiring and lampshade have been removed and the urn fully restored. TEFAF SUPPORTS INTERNATIONAL CANCER RESEARCH Since 2004 TEFAF Maastricht has supported international cancer research by a TEFAF Chair of Oncology at Maastricht University Medical Centre.