Maastricht is a phenomenon. How an art fair in a small Dutch town few had heard of until the eponymous European Union treaty could come to eclipse the long-established and dazzling fairs of Paris, London and New York is one of the (collecting) mysteries of our age. The European Fine Art Fair, now known by its inelegant acronym TEFAF, is unrivalled. And nothing can prepare the newcomer, however seasoned a fair visitor, for the scale, depth and quality of this epic event.

On March 10, oversize doors will open to a fair so vast it requires a street map to find one’s way around. More than 200 dealers from 15 countries line the squares and avenues of this cosmopolitan A-Z. It would take three or four days to scrutinise every object on every stand. Dealers are grouped together in specialist sections to minimise the time wasted pounding the aisles.

Even so, you still walk miles.

One of Maastricht’s great pleasures is that you never quite know what you might find. Anything and everything from classical, Egyptian and Chinese antiquities to illuminated manuscripts, Old Masters, modern and contemporary art, arms and armour, icons, silver, porcelain, tapestries, carpets, clocks, scientific instruments, sculpture, ethnography, jewellery, furniture, historic wallpaper . . . the list goes on. What you do know is that it represents pretty much the best the international art market can offer – and that an international vetting committee the size of a small regiment has verified each and every object for quality, authenticity and condition (see page five).

Dealers bring of their best because they can expect to see representatives from all their big institutional clients – and a good number of their private buyers or their agents. According to Maastricht Old Master specialist Robert Noortman, the decline in the dollar has taken the wind out of the important American market “but they are getting used to it and are buying again”. Serious buyers fail to make this particular pilgrimage at their peril as the preview is a swarm of museum groups and big collectors with their retinues of advisors and conservators – plus the groundswell of more modest collectors who choose Maastricht as the place to make their one annual purchase and enjoy a thoroughly good weekend choosing it. Even last year’s snow and ice, which closed Amsterdam airport, failed to stop the usual 70,000 or so visitors turning up.

Unlike all the other big international art and antiques fairs, Maastricht offers no grand social charity gala, no dressing up, no satellite events. This preview is simply not the kind of party you would bother attending unless you had some serious intention of buying a work of art. Maastricht is, first and foremost, a place where business is done. Dealers such as the London-based Johnny Van Haeften, who has a coals-to-Newcastle approach of bringing his entire stock of Dutch and Flemish Old Master paintings to Maastricht each year, anticipates selling 20 to 30 pictures. In a good year, sales will account for a quarter of the firm’s annual turnover. Where else could a collector expect to find up to 80 per cent of all the Dutch Old Master paintings available on the international market concentrated in a single place?

Maastricht’s success has been that, as a fair for dealers organised by dealers, it has been able to respond fairly swiftly to the opportunities of the ever-evolving market and hone its exhibitor list accordingly. It has been helped enormously by the fact that it is the one European fair that is truly neutrally and apolitically international rather than an essentially national affair with a few foreign exhibitors tacked on. Over the years, we have seen the likes of the great Textura section come and go, and seen other sections swell or diminish (La Haute Joaillerie du Monde is down to just five exhibitors this year). What has remained a constant, however, is its weakest link: modern and, most especially, contemporary art.

A few years ago, London dealer Leslie Waddington was charged with bringing up to speed a section once so dire that virtually everyone raced straight past it. He has charmed and cajoled a ream of big hitters, among them Landau of Montreal and Quebec (which this year brings a substantial little-known late Picasso) and New York’s Acquavella. This year he has played more trumps in the shape of Gagosian and Pace Wildenstein, Geneva-based Jan Krugier and Chicago’s Richard Gray Gallery. What can we expect from them? Gagosian will bring Rachel Whiteread, plus Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly.

Wildenstein offers the likes of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s recent mixed-media piece, “Beached Lutes – Version Two”. The latter shares a stand with the legendarily grand and discreet Wildenstein Gallery, which has chosen Maastricht to make its debut at an art fair for the first time in five generations.

Ever aware of burgeoning markets, the fair organisers have also brought in additional dealers specialising in Chinese and Russian works of art. Hong Kong-based Classical Chinese furniture specialist Grace Wu Bruce returns to Maastricht with a select group of Ming Dynasty huanghuali pieces; Littleton & Hennessy, with galleries in London and New York, favours Imperial porcelains. Russian furniture specialist Antoine Chenevière brings the likes of a handsome mahogany and gilt-bronze commode made in St Petersburg around 1790 by Christian Meyer. He joins Fabergé specialists Wartski and A La Vieille Russie, the latter proffering such whimsical conceits as a miniature Louis XVI guéridon, its rock crystal top inlaid with opals.

In our current topsy-turvy world where paintings – historically the poor man’s mosaic or tapestry – should have become the most acclaimed and expensive art form, Maastricht’s chief pleasure, for me at least, is its unabashed celebration of the object. Around half this cavernous Aladdin’s Cave is given over to works of art of almost every conceivable medium, period and place. Jean-David Cahn, for instance, presents a delectable 1st century Roman marble torso of a youthful Dionysus wearing a deer skin; while Brimo de Laroussilhe has a 13th-century Umbrian casket painted with busts of Christ, the Virgin, St John, St Clare and the abbess who commissioned it, which once belonged to the legendary American collector Samuel Kress.

Kunstkammer Georg Laue offers the most impressive amber figure seen on the market in decades; S.J. Phillips, a rare pair of early 18th-century Spanish silver candelabra. From the Pelham Galleries, there is a spectacular Louis XV bombé commode confected out of French black lacquer in the Chinese taste inlaid with gold and silver, and topped with brèche d’Alep. It is, unusually, still accompanied by its pair of matching encoignures.

Even after years of going to the European Fine Art Fair, I suspect I am not alone in still having only the haziest notion of where Maastricht is – somewhere close to the borders of Germany and Belgium (the gastronomes choose the latter for dinner) and to Maastricht-Aachen airport (connecting flights to Amsterdam and private jets welcome). For the truth is, the fair at Maastricht has become a destination in itself.

The fair runs from March 10-19; www.tefaf.com