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Across the pond in New York, the trade kicked off the year with the major international fair The Winter Show.

This large and imposing portrait of Pauline Bonaparte, the younger sister of Napoleon, sold for$310,000 (£238,700) in New York last week.

Among the ceramics to be included in the Thomaston Place Winter Auction to be held in Maine from February 28-March 1, is this 2½in (6.25cm) high English George III period earthenware mug.

A good range of 18th and 19th century English ceramics is included in Skinner’s February 14 sale of European furniture and decorative arts in Boston.

A sizeable helping of English and Continental ceramics featured in the large auction titled Mario Buatta: Prince of Interiors held by Sotheby’s New York (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium).

As ever, the most recent sale held by Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) contained a great many maps and atlases and shown below is one of the highlights.

This 14 x 10¾in (35.5 x 27cm) oil on canvas by Eugène Boudin (1824-98) will feature in Freeman’s sale of European Art and Old Masters in Philadelphia on February 18.

A remarkable piece of Qing porcelain sold for $270,000 at Pook & Pook in Downington, Pennsylvania.

Affirming the strength of the market for the best British milled coins, two exceptional English gold issues were among the top prices of this year’s New York International Numismatic Convention auctions.

Two key consignments, one painting and one drawing, lifted the latest Old Master series in New York to the highest total for five years.

‘Masterpieces’ from the celebrated collections of Dr Martin Schøyen offered at a recent Christie’s (25/20/13.5% buyer’s premium) sale in London included some real rarities.

Published anonymously in Boston in 1828, a copy of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s youthful first book, 'Fanshawe', sold for $38,000 (£28,790) at Bonhams New York (27.5/25/20/13.9%).

This Doulton Lambeth terracotta plaque by George Tinworth will be included in the ceramics section of Skinner’s February 14 sale of European furniture and decorative arts in Boston.

The sale at Brunk in Asheville, North Carolina, on February 8 includes a 3ft 10in (1.17m) carrara marble Cleopatra morente by the Italian sculptor Pio Fedi (1816-92).

An album dating to c.1887 containing 64 evocative albumen prints by Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, documenting Whitby, England, is on offer at New York auction house Swann.

Lambertsville, New Jersey, auction house Rago/Wright is to launch a new sale category on February 12 titled 'Studio Jewelry 1900-Present'.

According to a popular story, alexandrite, one of the three main varieties of chrysoberyl, was discovered in the Urals by the Finnish mineralogist Nils Gustaf Nordenskiöld (1792-1866) and named in honour of the future Tsar Alexander II of Russia.