The incunable edition of Marco Polo's travels (Peter Harrington image).

Peter Harrington will be exhibiting at TEFAF Maastricht with what they describe as “a tightly curated selection of museum-caliber works bringing together rare books, manuscripts and early printed artifacts that trace the origins of global exchange, travel, and knowledge transmission.” TEFAF Maastricht is an annual art fair hosted by The European Fine Art Foundation. It has appeared annually since 1988. Naturally, it takes place in Maastricht, the Netherlands. This year's edition will run from March 14-19.

TEFAF Maastricht is a celebration of seven centuries of art. That ranges from the older two-dimension artworks of many centuries ago to the most contemporary of realistic and abstract paintings. From the book world, there are comparatively more recent printed books to the illuminated manuscripts that preceded the invention of printing.

Harrington, in a news release says “anchoring the presentation is the rarest of all fifteenth-century printed editions of Marco Polo’s travels, De le maraveliose cose del Mondo (Brescia, 1500). One of only five known copies, and the only complete incunable edition of Marco Polo to have appeared on the market in more than 30 years, the book preserves the account that shaped Europe’s earliest understanding of China, Asia, and the mechanics of empire — including one of the first European descriptions of paper money.
 

“That description finds extraordinary material counterparts at the stand: a fourteenth-century Chinese stone printing block used to produce paper currency under the Yuan dynasty, and a rare early Ming dynasty paper banknote, both associated with the legendary French sinologist Paul Pelliot. Together, the three objects form a rare constellation linking travel literature, early printing technology, and the rise — and collapse — of paper money centuries before it reached the West.
 

“Beyond this core grouping, Peter Harrington’s TEFAF presentation spans pivotal moments in the history of ideas, image-making, and belief, including original colour-printed plates from William Blake’s Songs of Experience, an eighth-century Japanese “One Million Pagodas” printing - among the earliest surviving printed matter in the world.”

While art is the focus of TEFAF, it has been drawing some booksellers to the exhibition the last few years. They are high-end dealers like Peter Harrington who offer books that either contain plates that are works of art or that themselves physically are art works. They may bring other items of artistic printed material as well. Other booksellers exhibiting at the fair include Dr. Jorn Gunther Rare Books of Switzerland, Daniel Crouch Rare Books UK, Stéphane Clavreuil Rare Books UK, and Librairie Camille Sourget of France.