US

The Arctic Regions, 1873, a sumptuously bound narrative of American artist William Bradford’s seven expeditions to the Arctic, illustrated with 141 mounted albumen photographs, is the highest-estimated lot in the April 20 Swann Galleries photographs and photobooks sale.

Two pieces of early oak furniture deaccessioned from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York far outstripped modest expectations when offered for sale in California last month. The two tersely catalogued lots – both bequeathed to the museum in 1964 – appeared at Clars in Oakland on March 18. They sold to New York buyers.

It may have been under 2in (5cm) high, but a tiny ink drawing by Aubrey Beardsley sold for a sizeable $10,000 (£8000) in a sale of Illustration Art held by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) in New York on March 21.

A highlight of James D Julia’s latest arms and militaria sale on April 11 is this rare Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund sword, one of 23 awarded to captains who fought in the Battle of Trafalgar.

Making its third saleroom appearance in 30-odd years, the portrait in oils of Isaac Newton shown here is one of at least a dozen made in his lifetime.

Seen here is one of 13 coloured lithographs by Marc Chagall that make up Tales from the Arabian Nights, a special, deluxe portfolio printed by Albert Carman and published by Pantheon Books in New York in 1948.

A select sale of just 31 lots of Asian art assembled by a Japanese collector and his sons raised a recordbreaking $262.8m (£215.5m) at Christie’s New York on March 15. It made more in a single evening than any New York Asian sale series.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning lots fall flat... but annotated Dorian Gray leaves treble the estimate

Typewriters on which famous books came into existence have featured on these pages before, but not for some time – and certainly not machines of a kind that that continue to be used by their owner to this day.

Possibly the first printed reference to a ‘Great White’ shark attack is found in a four-page pamphlet, printed in Naples in 1721, from which the woodcut shown here is taken.

Past playthings by a host of famous vintage toy manufacturers will feature in the next Signature sale of Toys and Trains held by the specialist auction house Bertoia in Vineland, New Jersey, on March 25.

The diverse collection of Jeffrey M Kaplan is making various appearances under the hammer this spring.

With BBC Radio 4 currently offering a season of programmes focusing on the Red Planet in fact and fiction, a couple of books from the Edgar Rice Burroughs series of Martian fantasies that made high prices in a recent US sale are an appropriate choice for these reports.

The Pittsfield, Massachusetts, auction house Fontaine’s has a track record of selling good examples of horology and has achieved some very high prices recently for elaborate English clocks made for the Chinese market.

A Chinese Kangxi period triple gourd vase that once belonged to the financier JP Morgan will feature as one of the highlights in Heritage Auctions’ inaugural Asian Art sale in Dallas on April 2.