-
<b><center>Swann Auction Galleries<br>View Our Record Breaking Results</b><b>Swann:</b> Gideon Welles, <i>Extensive archive of personal and family papers of Lincoln’s Secretary of the Navy,</i> 1791-1914. Sold September 29 — $281,000.<b>Swann:</b> Charles Addams, <i>Rock Climbers,</i> cartoon for <i>The New Yorker,</i> watercolor, ink and gouache, 1954. Sold December 15 — $37,500.<b>Swann:</b> Charlotte Brontë, <i>Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. Edited by Currer Bell,</i> three volumes, first edition, 1847. Sold June 16, 2022 — $23,750.<b>Swann:</b> Geoffrey Chaucer, <i>The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed,</i> London, 1542. Sold October 13 — $106,250.<b><center>Swann Auction Galleries<br>View Our Record Breaking Results</b><b>Swann:</b> Dorothea Lange, <i>Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California (Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age 32),</i> silver print, 1936. Sold October 20 — $305,000.<b>Swann:</b> George Washington, Autograph Document Signed, with two manuscript plat maps in holograph, 1751. Sold October 27 — $37,500.<b>Swann:</b> Winfred Rembert, <i>Winfred Rembert and Class of 1959,</i> dye on carved & tooled leather, 1999. Sold October 6 — $233,000.<b>Swann:</b> M.C. Escher, <i>Relativity,</i> lithograph, 1953. Sold November 3 — $81,250.
-
<b><center>Sotheby’s<br>Original Film Posters<br>27 January - 10 February 2023</b><b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27-Feb. 10:</b> Vertigo (1958), poster, US. The ultimate poster on this classic Hitchcock title, one of three known examples. £40,000 to £60,000.<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27-Feb. 10:</b> Lawrence of Arabia (1962), roadshow poster, US. £8,000 to £12,000.<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27-Feb. 10:</b> Star Wars (1977), style C poster, printer's proof, US. £7,000 to £10,000.<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27-Feb. 10:</b> The Navigator/ La Croisiere du Navigator (1924), re-release poster (1931), French. £5,000 to £8,000.<b>Sotheby’s, Jan. 27-Feb. 10:</b> Bullitt (1968), special test poster, US. £3,000 to £5,000.
-
<center><b>Potter & Potter Auctions<br>Fine Books & Manuscripts,<br>including Americana<br>February 16, 2023</b><b>Potter & Potter, Feb. 16:</b> [KELMSCOTT PRESS]. CHAUCER, Geoffrey. <i>The Works…now newly imprinted.</i> Edited by F.S. Ellis. Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1896. $100,000 to $125,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Feb. 16:</b> [EINSTEIN, Albert (1879–1955)]. –– ORLIK, Emil (1870–1932), artist. Lithograph signed (“Albert Einstein”). N.p., 1928. $10,000 to $15,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Feb. 16:</b> TOLKIEN, John Ronald Reuel. <i>[The Lord of the Rings trilogy:] The Fellowship of the Ring.</i> 1954. –– <i>The Two Towers.</i> 1954. –– <i>The Return of the King.</i> 1955. $10,000 to $15,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Feb. 16:</b> CLEMENS, Samuel Langhorne ("Mark Twain") and Charles Dudley WARNER. <i>The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.</i> Hartford and Chicago, 1873. $6,000 to $8,000.<b>Potter & Potter, Feb. 16:</b> LOVECRAFT, Howard Phillips. <i>Beyond the Wall of Sleep.</i> Collected by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1943. $2,000 to $3,000.
-
<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> [Black Sun Press] Proust, Marcel, 47 Unpublished Letters from Marcel Proust to Walter Berry, Paris: The Black Sun Press, 1930. $400 to $600.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Williams, William Carlos (1883-1963), <i>Spring and All,</i> first edition, Paris: Contact Publishing Co., 1923. $400 to $600.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Washington, George (1732-1799), Autograph Letter Signed. $10,000 to $15,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Poe, Edgar Allan (1809-1849), Autograph Letter Signed. $30,000 to $50,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Thoreau, Henry David (1817-1862), Autograph Manuscript. $3,000 to $5,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> [Paris Commnue], Photograph album. $1,500 to $2,500.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Fleming, Ian (1908-1964), <i>Casino Royale,</i> first edition, London: Jonathan Cape, 1953. $3,000 to $4,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Audubon, John James and the Rev. John Bachman, <i>The Quadrupeds of North America,</i> New York: V.G. Audubon, 1849, 1851, 1854. $4,000 to $6,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Lewis, C.S. (1898-1963), <i>The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,</i> first edition, London: Geoffrey Bles Ltd, 1952. $600 to $800.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> [Bhagavad Gita] Wilkins, Charles, trans., <i>The Bhagvat-Geeta, or Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon…,</i> first edition, London: Printed for C. Nourse, 1785. $700 to $1,000.<b>Bonhams Skinner, Jan. 23 – Feb. 2:</b> Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, <i>Faust: Eine Tragodie von Goethe,</i> Hammersmith: Printed by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson & Emery Walker at the Doves Press, 1906-1910. $800 to $1,200.
Rare Book Monthly
Articles - November - 2003 Issue
Second Part of H.P. Kraus <br>Auction This Month
Lot 121 is a Papal Bull from Pope Calixtus III, the first Borgia pope, who served from 1455-1458. Calixtus was already 77-years of age when elected Pope, and his relatively brief papacy was consumed by unsuccessful attempts to unite the various Christian European nations in a crusade against the threatening Turks. He is also remembered for tendencies toward nepotism, which would later bring power to his family and difficulties to the Church. This Papal Bull, written less than three months after his elevation, grants an indulgence to Venetian nobleman Filippo Badoer and his family for their sins provided they meet such conditions as fasting every Friday for a year. $2,000-$3,000.
Lot 183 is David Abudarham’s Jewish liturgy printed in Lisbon in 1489. It is a first edition of only the second book to be printed in Lisbon. $65,000-$85,000.
A relatively “recent” religious tract is found in lot 428. It is the Massachuset Psalter, one of the most important testaments of the Massachusett language. This book went through the hands of James the Printer, the first North American Indian known as a printer. $50,500-$75,800.
The Kraus auction includes many titles of a scientific interest. For example, lot 276 is William Gilbert’s De magnete, magneticisque corporibus… printed in 1600. This is a first edition of what is described as the first major English scientific work on magnetism and electrical science. It includes the first use of the term “electricity.” In it Gilbert introduces his theory that the earth is a giant magnet. $15,000-$18,000.
Lot 59 is Pierre Belon’s L'histoire naturelle des estranges poissons marins…, a natural history of marine “fishes.” This is a 1551 first edition of the earliest modern work in comparative anatomy. Belon describes such animals as the dolphin, porpoise and hippopotamus. $10,000-$15,000.
An odd scientific work is found in lot 55, William Beaumont’s Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice, and the Physiology of Digestion. Beaumont was an army sergeant in Michigan in 1822 when a French-Canadian guide was injured in a shooting accident. The wound left an opening from which Beaumont was able to observe the digestive system and gastric juices of a living person for ten years. $1,500-$2,500.
This is certainly not an Americana auction, but a few lots do have an American connection. Lot 85 is a series of treatises by Thomas Blundeville, a friend of the aforementioned William Gilbert, who shared his interest in magnetism. Most of these are mathematical works, but the final treatise deals with maps and contains several references to America. Printed in 1622. $500-$700.