Most expensive puppet set (private sale)

In May 1982, following a public fund-raising campaign, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, USA, secured $1.25 million (£697,640) from more than 500 donors to buy Cirque Calder ("Calder’s Circus") by the American artist Alexander Calder.

The artwork, deemed to be an example of kineticism and, at the time already on loan to the museum from the Calder estate, comprises a circus of more than 70 articulated clowns, acrobats and animals made from wire, wood, metal, cloth, cork, fabric, and string, plus their nearly 100 accessories and 30 musical instruments and noise-makers.

The circus was designed to be portable – packing down into five suitcases – and in the mid-1920s, Calder, then living in France, would host shows, acting as ringmaster, manipulating the puppets and providing a running commentary in French and English while his wife played circus music on the gramophone, much to the delight of the Parisian avant-garde.

Among the troupe are a sword swallower, two Chinese wrestlers, a cowboy rodeo rider, a chariot racer and a camel. The set was purchased by the museum from the Calder estate, who “reluctantly concluded that the ‘Circus' must be sold in order to settle taxes owed by the estate.”