North America

The precise function of the series of English tin-glazed earthenware seated cat jugs common to the 1650s-70s is unknown but, as many are dated and initialled, they may have been given as marriage or betrothal gifts.

Sales of ski posters have long been a seasonal feature of the auction scene scheduled for those winter months when enthusiasts take to the slopes.

The sale of a family collection of British and American art and antiques assembled by three successive generations of South Carolina enthusiasts will go under the hammer through Childress Gaffney auctions in Greenville on February 9.

A two-in-one purchase, this Simon and Halbig bisque-headed doll comes with its own teddy bear in a 550-lot online-only auction of toys and past playthings.

A work once said to have “…set the course for the modern world by its effective destruction of the anthropocentric view of the universe” made a rare auction appearance.

'Across the Continent. Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way' is a well-known hand coloured litho print issued by Currier & Ives, although the publisher’s imprint has been cut off the bottom of the example shown below.

Groucho, Harpo and Chico are shown below in Al Hirschfield’s original cover artwork for 'Why a Duck?', a profusely illustrated work about the Marx Brothers edited by Richard J Anobile and published in 1971.

Gerald Brockhurst (1890-1978) was already an established etcher when his captivating canvases of society women catapulted him to fame during the interwar years.

The Athenian silver dekadrachm c.469/465-460BC is among the ancient world’s most celebrated coins – and a splendid example appeared for sale in New York last week.

The closure of south Florida’s primary exhibition venue for a two-year, $615m refurbishment threw the annual winter pilgrimage to the Sunshine State into flux. Perhaps, now that works at the Miami Beach Convention Center are largely complete, 2019 will be a little more straightforward.

With the auction scene in Continental Europe at a traditional low ebb in the first month of the year, the focus for international art world activity shifts across to the US.

For many years New York’s major salerooms mounted auction series of Old Master paintings, drawings and sculpture in the first months of the year immediately following their Americana series.

Illustrations offered as part of an online Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium) sale held in early December included a couple of Arthur Rackhams.

'Master Drawings New York', the gallery-based event in Manhattan Upper East side started 13 years ago, timed to coincide with the major January/February auctions of Old Master paintings and drawings in the Big Apple.