North America

New Orleans dealership MS Rau has opened an expanded retail space after three years of renovation.

Sold for a record $2750 (£2220) at PBA Galleries (20/15% buyer’s premium) in California on October 10 was an inscribed copy of The World Set Free, a prophetic novel by HG Wells.

Christie’s latest ‘Classic week’ in New York raised a premium-inclusive $59.9m (£46.8m) from nine separate sales.

A sale at Rago Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in its New Jersey rooms offered potential buyers the Andrew Furer and Elle Douglas collection: 27 lots of Martinware (mostly composed of the potters’ iconic Wally Bird creations).

Two books from Herman Melville’s library, both volumes of classical poetry that were annotated throughout and in one instance signed, topped a recent New York sale.

This sculptural white porcelain group of Ganymede and the Eagle is a rare survivor from the St James’s factory run by Charles Gouyn in London c.1749-60.

Golf books do not bring as many really high prices as was once the case, but the most recent of the regular sales in this category held by a Californian saleroom did contain a couple of surprises.

Copy No 74 of the 100 signed, first issue copies of James Joyce’s 'Ulysses' is estimated at $120,000-180,000 in November 5 sale being held by Hindman of Chicago.

Among the antique European rarities that are included in Milestone’s November 2 autumn firearms sale in Willoughby, Ohio, will be this 1733 French dragoon flintlock pistol of large size with a 12-inch barrel in .70 bore.

In 1953, British artist William Scott (1913- 89) made his first inroads into the New York art scene. James Johnson Sweeney, director of the Guggenheim, went to an exhibition of his work in London and reported to gallerist Martha Jackson: “At last England has a painter.”

This Irish silver two-handled footed cup will be included in the three-day, multi-discipline sale taking place at Thomaston Place Auction galleries from November 8-10 at Thomaston, Maine.

With the title and 26 plates tipped onto brown paper leaves, a large ‘library edition’ copy of William Nicholson’s famous Alphabet, published by Heinemann in 1898, is estimated at $800-1200 in a November 7 sale at PBA Galleries of San Francisco.

Jewellery designer Angela Cummings started a long career at Tiffany & Co aged 23, and eight years later, in 1975, created her first full collection under her own name.

Coming up for sale at Swann Galleries in New York on December 10 is an original, initialled ink and wash drawing by EH Shepard for a lesser-known work by Kenneth Grahame, Bertie’s Escapade, that was published by Lippincott in the US in 1949.