Americana Week shows and sales increasingly rely on blockbusters to capture attention in a crowded market and boost the bottom line. At Christie’s January 18 and 19 sales of American furniture, folk art, silver, prints and decoys, ten lots out of 716 generated $15,102,600, or 63 percent of the $23,922,400 total.

A carved oak Art Nouveau bakery interior fetched $97,750 at Kamelot’s Architectural Antiques and Victoriana sale on December 2 from a restaurant owner who plans to use the interior in one of his bakeries in the heart of New York City.

It all began on Friday, January 19, at 10 am when the first lot of the Americana sale at Sotheby’s was put up for bid. It all ended late Sunday afternoon, January 21, when the last of 1,080 lots was hammered down.

Swann Galleries’ annual auction of rare and important Art Nouveau posters on December 20, which featured works by masters of the medium, became the auction house’s most successful poster sale to date, totaling just under $1 million.

With the return of its Old Master paintings from a three-year national tour, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art will present the glories of its collections in “Faith and Fortune: Five Centuries of European Masterworks,” March 2–December 9.

The first major US exhibition in nearly three decades of the works of acclaimed Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo (1899–1991), “Tamayo: A Modern Icon Reinterpreted,” will make its debut at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA), its lead organizer, February 17 through May 27.

MoMA’s new “Focus” series kicks off with “Focus: Paul Klee,” an installation of 32 paintings, prints and drawings that spans Klee’s career from 1903 to 1940. On view until March 5, it celebrates the depth and breadth of the artist’s achievement.

Following a residential burglary here on November 5, 2006, the homeowner reported that ten pieces of antique stoneware were missing, along with other items, including candlesticks, serving spoons and forks and place settings.

Sometime between January 27 and 28, a painting valued at between $4,500 and $5,000 was taken from an antiques shop here. The painted silk mourning picture in original period gilt frame measures approximately 22 by 20 inches, with an eglomise glass liner.

Connecticut legislator Julia B. Wasserman has introduced a bill that would improve the process of purchasing or disposing of antique items containing mercury, such as antique thermometers and barometers.