International

SOLD for $1.4m (£760,870) at Sotheby’s New York on June 18 was a working draft, or heavily annotated multilith copy of the text that was to become known after the organisation established by its compilers as Alcoholics Anonymous.

THERE were two copies of Sailing and Fighting Instructions for His Majesties Fleet in a Sotheby’s New York sale of June 17.

CARAYOL'S (19.73/16.14% buyer’s premium) annual two-day sale at the Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz was staged this year in collaboration with Paris firm Boisgirard & Associés. With muted success; only a quarter of the 800 lots found takers for a hammer total of around €400,000 (£265,000).

THERE are few things so distinctly American in the book auction world as the collections of ‘Oziana’ that arrive in the salerooms with remarkable regularity.

SWITZERLAND hosts a new international fair later this year with the launch of The Basel Ancient Art Fair from November 12 to 17 at the historic Wenkenhof, just outside the city of Basel.

GEORGE Jensen silver specialists The Silver Fund, who have shops in St. James’s, London and Madison Avenue, New York, have opened an outlet at Gump’s, San Francisco’s leading department store.

OVERLAPPING with the start of the Biennale (September 15-19) will be the third annual Parcours des Mondes, a Left Bank gallery trail featuring 50 tribal art dealers.

JUST a taster for one of the greatest antiques shows on earth, the XX11 Paris Biennale Des Antiquaires, which will run at the Carrousel du Louvre in the heart of the French capital from September 15 to 28, with the vernissage on September 14.

SOMETHING in the region of $1.2m (£660,000) was taken at a July 31-August 1 sale held by the Neal Auction Company of New Orleans and two 20th century photographs (one reproduced right) were among the more successful lots.

THE biggest surprise in the July 17 sale held by Skinners of Boston was provided by a pair of Chinese chairs, but the pair of 3 7/8in (10cm) high, Wedgwood & Bentley blue jasper portrait medallions of c.1779 right, depicting William Penn & Benjamin Franklin, also did well.

A POSTER sale held by Swanns of New York on August 4 was strong on recruitment and propaganda posters of WWI and WWII. A condition-A copy of “the best known American poster of all time”, the famous Uncle Sam image of 1917 seen top right, was sold at $9000 (£4950). Based on the well-known British poster featuring Lord Kitchener, it was originally produced by illustrator James Montgomery Flagg as a magazine cover and is in fact a self-portrait of the artist.

OFFERED by Christie’s New York on June 25 was a magnificent unbound set of the plates that make up Audubon’s great Birds of America (1827-38) that came from the library of the Dukes of Saxe-Meiningen in Thuringia.

IN 1784, settlers in what is now North Carolina and eastern Tennessee put together a plan for a new state that was to be named in honour of Benjamin Franklin.

ILLUSTRATED right is the opening page of a 1468 paper manuscript copy (in period-style panelled calf with period clasps) of Jacob de Voragine’s 13th century history of the lives of the saints, Legenda Aurea – otherwise decorated with rubricated initials throughout – that with some staining to the opening leaves sold at $18,000 (£9780) in a Bonhams & Butterfields of San Francisco sale of June 28.

SHIP portraits are, as one might expect, popular with bidders at Eldred’s East Dennis auction galleries on Cape Cod.

CAPE Cod auctioneers Eldred’s of East Dennis had a busy August schedule and results from their series of Asian and Americana sales will appear in future US Selections, but seen here are two of the 970 lots found in an August 12-13 sale of Fine & Decorative Art.

WHEN Oscar Wilde left Reading prison, Reggie Turner presented him with the gentleman’s black leather travelling or dressing case, seen right.

SCULPTURE, which accounted for a quarter of Tajan's (20.33% buyer's premium) August 3-4 sale, fared better than the pictures, with two thirds of the 18 lots finding a taker, although Le Créateur, a small Rodin bronze that began proceedings, fell stone dead – bought in at €15,000 against an estimate of €20,000-30,000.

THE owners of Chicago’s Navy Pier have contracted Pfingsten Publishing to produce a new annual art and antiques event replacing two major fairs at the Windy City’s top venue.

THE three-session, 630-lot jewellery section of Tajan's (20.33% buyer's premium) August 3-4 sale, with a chirpy attendance of 80-100 throughout, met a more convincing response than the Modern art, bringing €2.7m (£1.8m) hammer, including an aftersale €145,000 (£96,670) for a grey-gold ring with a fancy yellow, rectangular 29.57-carat diamond (estimate €200,000-250,000).