The masks - mysterious looking faces fashioned from wood, leather, horse hair and feathers, and painted in a vivid array of colours - are spiritual artefacts thought to have been taken from a reservation in northern Arizona in the 1930s and 40s.

BBC: Hopi tribe masks fetch record prices at Paris auction

He was carrying a beat-up and bulging old leather diary with a painted, hand-tooled relief of a horse on its cover.

NEWYORKER: Master of Play

Standing near one of the mounted warriors, for example, we take in gold-trimmed expanses of small lacquered squares that cover the horse's flank, the grain of a decorated leather saddle pad, the sheen of a black metal mask, the ribbing of the helmet, the softness of the underarmor shirt, and the vibrant orange-and-gold striation of the samurai's cuirass and skirt.

WSJ: Dressed to Kill in Peacetime | Samurai! | Museum of Fine Arts, Boston | By Lee Lawrence