North America

Dealer Peter Harrison has sold a recently reidentified portrait by 17th century painter Mary Beale (1633-99) to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

From 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' to 'The Last Duel', films nearly always depict the Middle Ages as dark, dingy and beset by bad weather.

Among the many highlights of the Alan and Simone Hartman collection at Bonhams New York is a copy of the monumental catalogue of the famed Bishop collection of Chinese jades. The deluxe volume, once owned by the last tsar of Russia, carries expectations of $100,000-150,000 as part of the 114-lot dispersal on December 14.

A group of letters sent from a clipper ship captain in Shanghai during the Second Opium War (1856-60) to his sons in the Charlestown area of Boston resounded with bidders at Merrill’s Auctioneers (21% buyer’s premium) in Williston, Vermont on November 3.

Scrap of paper came as result of half a manuscript book being chewed into ‘confetti’ by Steinbeck’s dog

A fine pair of 18th century English chairs sold for $120,000 (£100,000) in Asheville, North Carolina, on November 16-18.

Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) arrived on the Amalfi Coast in 1923 and ultimately created more than 100 works there based on the landscape.

Eminent artist stepped aside once he saw the monumental figure by younger colleague Maillol

In September 2020, Soulis Auctions knocked down record prices at a sale of the Richard and Valerie Tucker collection of carnival shooting gallery targets.

An ancient Egyptian sculptural fragment was the most eagerly contested lot in Thomaston Place Auction Galleries’ (20% buyer’s premium) Autumn Majestic sale on November 10-12.

In the Mid-century market, the devil is in the detail.

The grandnephew of Parisian art and antiquities dealer Ernest Brummer (1891-1964) is parting with this second-century AD Roman marble head of a triton at Hindman in Chicago.

Dispersal of renowned collection launches with the first auctions including Aldine ‘crown jewels’

The first American Civil War playset produced by Marx came in 1958 but in 1961 a real blockbuster version appeared: the Giant Blue and Gray Battle Set.

This Roman marble bust hammered for $47,500 (£39,100) against an estimate of $2000-3000 at Wiederseim Associates (25% buyer’s premium) in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania on October 20.

Catalogued simply as an ‘ornate Chinese plaque’ and estimated at $600-800, a Qing lacquer and porcelain panel hammered for a remarkable $440,000 (£359,000) at Regency Auction House in Rockaway, New Jersey.

The highly imaginative post-war toys made in Japan for the US market are sought-after lots at auction

Classical Chinese furniture deaccessioned from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts produced some sensational results at a dedicated Asian Art sale held by Brunk Auctions (23% buyer’s premium) in Asheville, North Carolina on October 19.