Even since the damping fog of global economic gloom began to shroud the art market last autumn, a range of exceptional works of art has continued to find record prices. For the most part there has been a dramatic falling-off of interest, and prices, for the more run-of-the-mill. Yet the Old Master paintings sales in London in December, and those in New York in January, gave real pause for thought for they appear to have bucked, or at least arrested, market trends.

Huge prices were, not surprisingly, found for the most admired lots, be they recent rediscoveries or celebrated minor masterpieces. In the case of the most talked-about pictures of the season – not least the compelling and recently restituted “Bagpipe Player in Profile” of 1624 by Hendrick Ter Brugghen, which realised a record $10.2m at Sotheby’s New York on January 29 (estimate $4m-$6m) – it is hard to imagine that they would have fetched any more a year ago.

More remarkable was the fact that demand was also there for less distinguished material. Christie’s London sale, for instance, was an unusually high 80 per cent sold by lot. Similarly, at the first part of the huge, eclectic collection of the distinguished art historian Julius Held, which Christie’s offered in New York on January 27, some 85 per cent was sold by lot, 91 per cent by value. The top price here was just over half a million dollars.

What is happening? Are collectors inclining towards more traditional taste and values, or are investors simply believing that the traditional Old Master market – solid, serious and less distorted by speculative buying than modern and contemporary art – is offering a safe haven for their money? Certainly, several long-dormant European collectors chose this moment to plunge back in to the market, and institutions, too, have been buying, even banks. The Sienese gold-ground panel by Segna di Bonaventura, for instance, offered at Christie’s London, was bought by the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena for £937,250.

Since then, the National Gallery of Art in Washington has acquired a Ter Brugghen through dealers Johnny Van Haeften, Konrad Bernheimer and Otto Naumann, and, in the run up to the TEFAF fair in Maastricht, London’s Weiss Gallery announced that “Saint Sebastian bound for Martyrdom”, the early Van Dyck that was the centrepiece of its stand last year, had just been sold to the Patrimonio Nacional on behalf of the Spanish State for €2.55m. It now returns to the Prior’s Chapter House at the Escorial.

One explanatory factor in all this activity is, of course, the weakening of the pound against both the dollar and the euro. The lion’s share of the serious Old Master paintings business is conducted in or through London, and the biggest buyers are collectors and institutions in the US. Prices are suddenly looking very appealing. As in every other market, though, anything deemed over-priced is mercilessly cast aside.

TEFAF Maastricht is, of course, the most important fair in the world for Old Masters: paintings, drawings and prints. Its 75 or so specialist dealers in this field – from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain and the US as well as the UK – present an unrivalled shop-window to the world’s collectors and curators, major and minor. Konrad Bernheimer, chairman of the fair’s pictura, or fine art section, describes the mood among his fellow dealers as “quietly confident”. He believes that more and more collectors are turning to Old Masters from classical modern and contemporary art, not least because it is one area of the market which is showing stability. He is tempting this year’s visitors with the likes of Lucas Cranach the Elder’s impressive “David and Bathsheba” of 1534, and a rare religious painting by Frans Hals, a “St Mark” from a set of Four Evangelists which had originally belonged to Catherine the Great. Both are priced between €5m and €6m.

Maastricht is never without its discoveries; indeed the Hals only emerged in the 1970s. One of the most beguiling unknown works to be unveiled this year comes courtesy of the Galerie Canesso in Paris: Michael Sweerts’ “The Great Laundry Day” (price: €1.3m). A line of washing is a bold subject for the 17th century and this enigmatic artist appears to have painted this one soon after his arrival in Rome in 1646. Here his work is linked to that of the Bamboccianti, a group of Flemish painters working in the Eternal City who focused on scenes of everyday life. Unlike his compatriots, however, Sweerts endowed his compositions with an almost classical structure and solemn monumentality more usually found in history painting. He favours a near-monochrome palette and dramatic Caravaggesque lighting and plenty of incidental detail, too.

Another hitherto unpublished tour de force is “A still-life of flowers in a blue and white vase” by Jan Brueghel The Elder, another Flemish master to travel to Italy, this time 1589-96. His patron was Cardinal Federico Borromeo, for whom he painted some of the earliest known independent flowerpieces. All of his flower specimens, many of them rarities, were “made after nature”, meticulously observed and rendered using fine stippled brushstrokes, but few of those presented in his bouquets would ever have been in bloom at the same time. An oil on panel in immaculate condition, this well-travelled bouquet, painted around 1606-8, was certainly in Italy in the 19th century, and it is now offered by Johnny Van Haeften for around £4m.

To make the point that not all pictures at Maastricht are northern or, indeed, cost millions, I include another wonderful oil on panel by the most innovative artist working in Milan in the 1620s, Daniele Crespi. This “Sacrifice of Isaac” can be found on the stand of the young Florentine dealers Emanuele and Leonardo Piacenti in the fair’s Showcase section which offers younger dealers a one-off opportunity to exhibit at the world’s best fair. Its price is less than €400,000.

TEFAF Maastricht, March 13-22, www.tefaf.com