North America

Sold for $28,000 (£20,820) by Christie’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on December 5 was this original drawing by Ralph Steadman for the 1971 first appearance of Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

With options to sell at regular intervals in North America, Europe, Hong Kong or China, the major auction houses and their vendors take a global view of the Asian art market.

As well as the ‘big three’, a clutch of other US salerooms will be holding specialist Asian art sales in mid March.

Mid March in Manhattan is when the art market turns its cultural and commercial face east. This is the first of two New York Asian auction series (the other is in September), but what distinguishes the spring event, dubbed Asia Week New York (AWNY), is the input of dealer exhibitions.

Printed in Mexico in 1787, but promoted as the first book in English printed west of the Mississippi, a slim work of just 14 leaves in contemporary paper wrappers called A Short Abridgment to Christian Doctrine was one of the rarer items offered in a recent California sale.

Further discoveries from recent New York and London auctions including polar rarities.

English furniture, works of art and decorations of the most traditional kind were the object of a 365-lot, single-owner sale held by Doyle (25/20/12.5%) buyer’s premium in New York.

Among the most popular of the collectable bronze and ivory figures created by the Paris-based sculptor/designer Demêtre Chiparus are his models of dancers.

Among the lots offered in the March 9 Books and Manuscripts auction at Bonhams New York is an Isaac Newton work now with parallels to the rather more modern Harry Potter books.

Vernacular texts from the Middle Ages might be rarer than their Latin equivalents but their accounts of medieval society and history can offer modern readers a clearer window to the past.

A signed and inscribed first edition of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has hopes of selling for as much as $100,000 in Heritage Auctions’ Rare Book auction on March 7 in New York.

Morphy Auctions’ March 1-2 Premier Firearms Sale in Denver, Pennsylvania, includes various other militaria categories, such as edged weapons.

The New York International Numismatic Convention (NYINC) has taken the decision to drop antiquities from its offering amid concerns over looted art.

Published jointly by Kellogg & Comstock of New York and D Needham of Buffalo, c.1849-50, the rare and amusing hand coloured lithograph shown below is titled The Independent Gold Hunter on His Way to California: I Neither Borrow nor Lend.

When Bill Kime, senior decorative arts specialist at the Waddington’s (20% buyer’s premium) saleroom, was contacted early last year by a couple from British Columbia about selling their collection of Martinware, he jumped at the chance.