North America

This novel 14ct gold, cabochon emerald, diamond, and ruby brooch by Van Cleef & Arpels carries an estimate of $5000-7000 at Skinner of Boston’s sale of Important Jewelry on December 4.

Heritage Auctions’ Fine Jewelry Signature sale in New York on December 3 includes two rings by London-based designer and virtuoso goldsmith Elizabeth Gage.

The very first lot offered as part of a Harry Houdini collection in an October 20 sale held by US magic specialist Potter & Potter (20% buyer’s premium) was a 50 cent, 1898 copy of Magic Made Easy…

Though an assortment of highprofile sales took place at the recent TEFAF New York Fall, some participants reported that business was markedly slower than in other editions.

The sale to held by Blackwell auctions in Florida on November 10 will include a selection of books from the library of Dromoland Castle, the Irish castle in County Clare where the historic ‘Armada table’ sold last month by Adam’s in Drogheda, Ireland, for €360,000 was housed for 300 years (ATG No 2364).

A selection of preview highlights from upcoming American auctions, including a terracotta bust by Maurice Guiraud-Rivier.

ATG’s calendar of auctions taking place in the US and Canada in November and December 2018.

Illustrated below is a spread from a 1488 edition of a popular account of travels to various parts of the world that is generally referred to as a compilation by Sir John Mandeville.

All rather slim – one in fact a single sheet broadside – the three items noted here were all part of a Bonhams New York (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of September 25 and, spanning some 80 years, all bear Boston imprints.

The dust jacket is far from pristine, but this 1933 first of The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas is signed and inscribed by both its subject and her lifelong partner, the writer Gertrude Stein.

Black Rock Galleries in Greenwich, Connecticut received bids up to $388,000 (plus 18% buyer’s premium) for a bronze it believes is Buste de Saint Jean-Baptiste, a previously lost lifetime cast by Rodin.

Was this the gun that John James Audubon (1785-1851) used to create the world’s most expensive natural history book?

Eleven years after John Kennedy Toole committed suicide, fellow writer Walker Percy was the man who ensured that his only book, A Confederacy of Dunces, finally got into print.