North America

Horace Pippin (1888-1946), a self-taught black US artist known for images of the First World War, biblical scenes and images of racial segregation, features at 'The Philadelphia Show' this year where his 1944 still-life 'The Love Note' is offered by M Hanks Gallery for $250,000.

The invention of the megalethoscope by the Swiss-Italian optician and photographer Carlo Ponti greatly enhanced the experience of viewing photographs.

Priced 10 cents when it appeared in 1938, a copy of Action Comics No 1 which introduced Superman has become the world’s most valuable comic book.

'Moulin Rouge, La Goulue' was Henri Toulouse-Lautrec’s first commissioned poster and it launched his poster-making career overnight.

Bob Aibel is founder of Moderne, one of the exhibitors at the Philadelphia Show

Almost 3ft (90cm) wide and weighing a massive 710oz, this Edwardian wine cistern is marked for Garrard & Co, London, 1903.

This aristocratic survivor from the ‘brass and glass’ era of microscope making, a version of Powell & Lealand’s famous ‘No 1’ compound monocular and binocular microscope, is dated 1898.

This parcel gilt silver cased cheval clock by Thomas Cole (1800-64) is hallmarked for London 1850 and the maker John Samuel Hunt of Hunt & Roskell.

Correct in detail, material and quality of construction, down to brass hardware, stencilled cloth and monogrammed leather trim’, a miniature Louis Vuitton trunk sold for $7500 (£5900) at Thomaston Place Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium).

Two watercolours in the manner of John Singer Sargent sailed above hopes when offered by Amelia Jeffers (20% buyer’s premium) in Delaware, Ohio on March 7.

This Korean 10-panel folding screen made in the late 19th century in the final years of the Joseon period (1392- 1910) was offered on the second day of the recent Unreserved Sale at the Neal Auction Company (25/15% buyer’s premium).

This Herter Bros inlaid rosewood and upholstered slipper chair was part of a suite made for the Vanderbilt family c.1881-82.

Ben Nicholson’s series of monochromatic three-dimensional relief paintings - created by the thick layers of white paint and carving wood - were first produced in the mid-to-late 1930s.

A sale titled Vintage for Valentines at Augusta Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) in Bellows Falls, Vermont, was topped by an extraordinary printed chiffon outfit by the Parisian fashion house Worth.