North America

Naturalist produced a fish-focused work featuring nearly 3000 original watercolours across 50 copies

New Orleans dealership MS Rau has acquired 222 pieces of English silver from the collection of Texan businessman Billy Joe ‘Red’ McCombs (1927-2023).

Collector never seemed to give up in a battle to win more magnificent ukiyo-e works

Only 29 books from the library of John Keats are recorded - among them a 1679 printing of the collected works of the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser given to him by the artist Joseph Severn (1793-1879).

The original artwork for 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone' sold at Sotheby’s for $1.6m (£1.3m) plus 20% buyer’s premium in New York on June 26.

The Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa (1906-78) designed for Venini from 1932-47, creating around 30 different ranges.

Concept Art Gallery (22% buyer’s premium) in Pittsburgh enjoyed a sensational result on June 8.

Three Royal Worcester vases on offer were all painted by the versatile decorator

The Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa (1906-78) designed for Venini from 1932-47, creating around 30 different ranges.

Three Royal Worcester vases on offer were all painted by the versatile decorator

A wheellock sporting arm from the renowned Cabinet d’Armes of King Louis XIII (1601-43) is for sale at Rock Island Auction Company (RIAC) from August 23-25.

Estimated at $15,000-20,000 but hammering for $135,000 (£107,000), the highlight of the Asian works of art sale at Tenmoku (28/25/20% buyer’s premium) was a Chinese white-glazed incised dragon vase.

On the market for the first time in over half a century, a Roman marble copy of the Crouching Venus hammered at $130,000 (£103,000) in the Freeman’s Hindman (27/21/15% buyer’s premium) auction on May 23.

Although the designer and silversmith are unknown, this silver snake jug forms part of the group of trompe l’oeil objects produced during the 1870s-80s by the Gorham factory in Providence, Rhode Island.

Over 100 patents for mechanical apple parers were granted in the US between 1850-90.

Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was one of 20th century USA’s most prominent architects, inventors and designers.

Concept Art Gallery (22% buyer’s premium) in Pittsburgh enjoyed a sensational result at a recent sale.

With very few exceptions, the French artist Victor Philippe Lemoine-Benoit (active 1831-50) devoted almost all of his painting career to one subject: hot-air balloons of the type made famous by the Montgolfier brothers in the late 18th century.