International

A group of letters sent from a clipper ship captain in Shanghai during the Second Opium War (1856-60) to his sons in the Charlestown area of Boston resounded with bidders at Merrill’s Auctioneers (21% buyer’s premium) in Williston, Vermont on November 3.

From 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' to 'The Last Duel', films nearly always depict the Middle Ages as dark, dingy and beset by bad weather.

Among the many highlights of the Alan and Simone Hartman collection at Bonhams New York is a copy of the monumental catalogue of the famed Bishop collection of Chinese jades. The deluxe volume, once owned by the last tsar of Russia, carries expectations of $100,000-150,000 as part of the 114-lot dispersal on December 14.

On December 12 in Paris the auction firm Pescheteau-Badin will be offering this writing table that belonged to Louis XV.

Dealer Peter Harrison has sold a recently reidentified portrait by 17th century painter Mary Beale (1633-99) to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

Collection from unnamed vendor supplies some of the highest prices in a sale at the Drouot centre

A piece of French cabinetmaking with a provenance to Louis XV came up for sale on November 25 at SGL enchères (26.4% buyer’s premium inc tax).

Pictured here are two paintings by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) appearing on the French auction scene this season within the space of a month - one sold, the other upcoming.

On December 8 Beaussant-Lefèvre is holding a sale that will feature a number of examples of Gallé glass including this early piece.

Although this small oil sketch that surfaced at Oxio Paris (24% buyer’s premium) in Saint-Ouen on November 19 was catalogued as by ‘Howard Hancock’, the signature is clearly that of David Howard Hitchcock (1861-1943).

Scrap of paper came as result of half a manuscript book being chewed into ‘confetti’ by Steinbeck’s dog

The Christmas Rare Books & Collectors sale at Irish auction house Fonsie Mealy on December 12-13 includes No33 of only 150 copies in a limited special edition of Bog Poems by Seamus Heaney illustrated by Barrie Cooke (London, Rainbow Press, 1975).

A fine pair of 18th century English chairs sold for $120,000 (£100,000) in Asheville, North Carolina, on November 16-18.

Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) arrived on the Amalfi Coast in 1923 and ultimately created more than 100 works there based on the landscape.

Created in the late 1920s by Spanish aeronautical engineer Juan de la Cierva (1895-1936), the autogiro entered service in the late 1930s.

Catalogued simply as an ‘ornate Chinese plaque’ and estimated at $600-800, a Qing lacquer and porcelain panel hammered for a remarkable $440,000 (£359,000) at Regency Auction House in Rockaway, New Jersey.

The grandnephew of Parisian art and antiquities dealer Ernest Brummer (1891-1964) is parting with this second-century AD Roman marble head of a triton at Hindman in Chicago.

The highly imaginative post-war toys made in Japan for the US market are sought-after lots at auction