North America

For antiquities aficionados, the pinnacle of Christie’s ‘Classic Week’ in New York was its single-owner offering of 40 exquisitely carved intaglios and cameos hailing from the ancient world.

Hindman Auctioneers, formerly Leslie Hindman, is newly rebranded and has a busy calendar across its six US salerooms this year.

This 9in (23cm) high tinplate toy, which comes with three interchangeable faces, is by the German firm of Distler.

Among the 700-plus lots of posters included in Potter & Potter’s auction in Chicago on May 22 will be a 1913 French example advertising Terrot bicycles.

A 23in (58.5cm) diameter Art Deco table by the designer Edgar Brandt has been consigned to the two-day Design for the Home and Garden auction to be held by Andrew Jones in Los Angeles on May 18-19.

Billed as the first music to be both composed and printed in the New World, Juan Navarro’s setting of '…Quatuor passions Christi' was one of several items of Mexican origin to do well in a recent Americana sale.

This over life-sized marble bust depicts Emperor Didius Julianus, who ruled the Roman empire for just a few short months in the year 193AD. His fleeting 66-day reign took place during the tumultuous period known as ‘The Year of the Five Emperors’ and came to a grisly end when he was murdered by a common soldier.

These two 19th century micromosaic panels feature in different US auctions this month.

On May 17 Stair Galleries in Hudson, New York, is selling the collection of Indian artefacts from the estate of David Swope of Ossining, NY.

Among the top lots at Christie’s (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium) trio of Old Master sales during ‘Classic Week’ was a rediscovered oil sketch by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) for 'The Distribution of the Eagle Standards'.

Christie’s latest ‘Classic Week’ sales series put in a robust performance with sales of Old Master and 19th century pictures, sculpture and antiquities generating a premium-inclusive total of $79.5m (£61.16m).

The latest version of Christie’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) Collector sale in New York featured an interesting collection of equine pottery: an ensemble of 10 large-scale English pearl ware horses, the majority made in the Leeds pottery in the first half of the 19th century.

Ian Fleming firsts in a Swann of New York sale of May 14 will include a copy of Goldfinger of 1959 inscribed to a famous golfer, Henry Cotton, estimated at $12,000-18,000 (£9250- 13,850).

Tightly bound, clean and crisp, and “about the nicest copy we have seen” was the assessment by a specialist US saleroom of the biggest winner in its auction of a single-owner gambling memorabilia collection.

Researching Old Master paintings is sometimes likened to putting together the pieces of a jigsaw. But for one upcoming work, it seems this was quite literally the case.

English and Continental porcelain from several notable estates is included in Stair Galleries’ next fine sale in Hudson, New York, on April 27-28.