US

Skinner of Boston – now part of Bonhams – has appointed Benjamin Mini as director of the rugs and carpets department. He will also serve as the regional director of the auction house for Maine and northern New England.

A recently rediscovered miniature book by Charlotte Brontë (1816-55) is on offer at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair (NYIABF) this month.

Pennsylvania dealership HL Chalfant, a specialist in American decorative arts, offers a turned banister back armchair at this year’s Philadelphia Show. The chair itself was made in Pennsylvania, c.1730- 40, and is available for $35,000.

This view of a Rheinish castle in a landscape is attributed to the 17th century Dutch landscape artist Herman Saftleven the Younger (1609-85).

A round up of the latest announcements of new roles and moves.

A feature of Milestone’s spring toy sale in Willoughby, Ohio, on April 9 will be a collection of over 60 Popeye-related toys.

The original doctorate certificate awarded to Albert Einstein by the University of Zurich in 1905 will be a highlight offering at Bonhams in New York.

A characteristically elaborately pierced and carved oak hall chair by the US furniture maker and designer Charles Rohlfs (1853-1936) proved to be the toast of the most recent Cottone (20% buyer’s premium) auction.

Potter & Potter’s Fine Literature & Modern Firsts Sale on April 26 in Chicago includes a copy of Oscar Wilde’s (1854-1900) The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

California dealership Denenberg Fine Arts has sold a full set of 80 prints from the Jugendstil magazine PAN to Chicago’s Driehaus Museum.

Running to 63 photographs, a virtually complete set of those produced for Carleton Watkins’ 1863 publication '…Photographic Views of the Falls and Valley of Yosemite' in Mariposa County, California featured in a January 27 sale at Nate D Sanders (25% buyer’s premium) of Los Angeles.

The best-seller at $400,003 (£296,300)* in a recent sale at RR Auction was a doubly signed receipt in which Johann Sebastian Bach acknowledges payment of the sum of five guilders under the terms of Sabina Nathan’s legacy.

The ivory regulations of New York State will be reviewed by New York court judges following an appeal brought by two US antique dealer associations.

This Regina disc and double comb-operated upright musical box is expected to be one of the highlights when Woody Auction in Kansas offers the collection of David and Marlene Howard from Ohio on March 19.