US

A US judge has ordered Christie’s to identify the winning bidder of the $12.5m (£9.7m) Guennol Stargazer, an ancient Anatolian idol auctioned in New York in April.

Russ Withem has joined Morphy Auctions as a firearms expert in the company’s firearms and militaria division.

For many years auctioneers have been itching to move the finest arms and armour from the province of the specialist collector and establish them with a wider audience as works of art in their own right.

This bronze Lantaka ship’s swivel gun/signal cannon is one of the antique firearms to be offered by Cordier Auction in a July 30 auction of more than 350 lots of militaria and firearms.

A sale entirely devoted to memorabilia from the world trade fairs and exhibitions is to be held by Grays Auctioneers in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 31.

A superb suite of the original ink and gouache drawings – one shown here – made by Carl Otto Czeschka to illustrate a 1908 edition of Die Niebelungen dem Deutschen Volke sold at $290,000 (£224,805) in a Sotheby’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of June 6 called Important Design.

Multi-consignments from single-owner collections and a smorgasbord of different collecting categories provided bidders with a huge choice of vintage toys in specialist auctioneer Bertoia’s (20% buyer’s premium) sale on June 2-3.

Marc Lescarbot’s Nova Francia… of 1609 is an account of French settlements in North America and what we now think of as Nova Scotia and Canada. It predates the more famous first accounts of Champlain’s voyages and discoveries by three years.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s much-loved tale of The Little Prince was first published in New York in 1943, with Reynal & Hitchcock issuing it in both French and English versions.

Translated from a Paris version that had appeared earlier in that same year of 1535, an 8pp German newsletter giving an account of the execution of Thomas More sold for $11,500 (£9055) as part of the Eric Caren archive at Christie’s New York (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on June 15.

Sold by RR Auction (25/22.5% buyer’s premium) on June 14 was a financial document of November 1721 bearing the signature of Isaac Newton – an order to pay to a Dr Francis Fauquier the dividend due on his substantial investment in the South Sea Company.