US

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.

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.

Inscribed to a fellow dramatist, a presentation copy of the 1933 first of Nathaniel West’s classic black comedy, Miss Lonelyhearts, did exceptionally well at Christie’s New York (25/20/12.5%).

Auctions on New Year’s Day are a tradition in regional North America. The sale at Nadeau’s in Windsor, Connecticut, on the first day of 2019 included a collection of 17th and 18th century English silver that had been given to Yale University in 1896 in memory of a former alumnus, the Pennsylvania coal baron James Browne Neale.

Bound as two volumes in contemporary red morocco gilt, its plates and plans finely coloured and gilt heightened throughout, an exceptional example of Joan Blaeu’s celebrated 17th century townbook of the Netherlands was offered in a recent American sale.

Painted as a birthday gift, a portrait of one of the more popular characters in the annals of American children’s literature, Eloise, sold for $80,000 (£62,675) at Bonhams New York (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on December 5.

German and Latin versions of ‘Nuremburg Chronicle’ impress in separate sales.

This Chinese export porcelain punch bowl will feature in a large two-day sale of more than 750 lots of Americana and international interest at Pook & Pook in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, on January 11-12.

A new auction record for the idiosyncratic stonewares of the Martin brothers was established at Phillips’ Design sale in New York.

Showing hardly any signs of wear and signed by JK Rowling – and originally acquired at a special signing at Harrods, as revealed by a laid-in ticket – a near pristine first issue copy of 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone' of 1997, appeared at auction earlier this month.

The highlight of the specialist sale of firearms and militaria held by Pook & Pook (22% buyer’s premium) in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, on November 17 was this matched pair of 18th century flintlock pistols.

‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’, ‘The Mystery of the Marie Roget’ and ‘The Purloined Letter’ are among now famous works that are to be found in the newly discovered first issue copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales shown below.

Written just a year before his death in 1955, a famous two-page letter in which Albert Einstein put down his thoughts on religion, his Jewish identity and his own search for the meaning of life sold for $2.4m (£1.89m) in a New York auction on December 4.

A selection of potential highlights coming up in December and January sales taking place in Detroit, Chicago, New York, California, Boston and Connecticut.