North America

Many of the most famous artists and designers of the Art Deco era were employed to decorate the interiors of the luxury liner SS Normandie, a virtual floating palace to that most glamorous of inter-war design movements.

The autograph sale held by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in New York on May 4 included a musical quotation in the hand of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the theme from the finale of his Orchestral Suite No.3 in G Major (Op.55), which sold for $14,000 (£10,855).

A Boston museum has doubled its reward to $10m to find artworks stolen 25 years ago. This sum will be offered until December.

The flagship auctions of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art in New York last week showed a recovery after a difficult 2016.

Finely bound sets featured in the high spots ofa third Sotheby’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of modern literature from the Maurice Neville library held on April 25.

Jimi Hendrix's Fender Stratocaster - 'the guitar that changed music' - is being offered at Heritage Auctions' sale in June

Despite being one of the best-known American artists of the 20th century, relatively little information exists on the early years of Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) when he began to emerge as a prominent force in the art world.

This French etrennes presentation gift set from c.1900 is a type that was popular in the early 20th century with toy and department stores who competed with each other to create the most eyecatching arrangements to attract customers.

Following the sentencing of former Mallett director Henry Neville for his part in an embezzlement case in April, Stanley Gibbons says it is “pursuing remedies for recouping the losses suffered as a result of these matters”.

Inscriptions and/or dates add a premium in many classes of ceramics but especially so in delftware. Some afficionados such as the late Syd Levethan made this a particular goal for their collecting.

Fabergé and Russian works of art take the lead at Doyle while Nash heads the history of advertising design sale at Swann