US

WITH the frontispiece and all but the last of the 34 double-page or folding engraved plates and plans in full contemporary colour, Isaac Commelin’s Histoire de la Vie & Actes memorables de Frederic Henry de Nassau, Prince d’Orange of 1656 sold for $32,000 (£17,580) in a Christie’s New York sale of June 9.

CHELSEA-based Paul Andrews has been a full-time dealer since 1965 and for the past 14 years has sold a wide range of antiques from 4000 square feet in the Furniture Cave in King’s Road, London SW10.

LEADING New York antiquities dealers Royal-Athena Galleries hold two concurrent selling exhibitions from October 1 to 30 at their galleries at 153 East 57th Street.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

ALTHOUGH paintings provided the highest prices for Christie’s New York's (19.5% buyer’s premium) Maritime sale on July 29, the 310-lot sale’s smaller miscellany of maritime objects also drew some serious competition for certain objects.

RIGHT: Indoor Athlete, a signed “first stone” lithograph of 1921 by American artist George Bellows, which made $13,000 (£7065) in a May 21-23 sale held by Northeast Auctions of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

NEW York City is never a shy and retiring place, but its profile will be bigger and brasher than ever from August 30 to September 2 when the Republican Party Convention takes over Madison Square Garden.