Select items from the first sale of La Bibliothèque de Pierre Bergé
Pierre Bergé, the French industrialist and co-founder of Yves Saint Laurent Couture House, is auctioning his collection of rare books and manuscripts beginning this December. Assembled over the course of fifty years, 1,600 items known as La Bibliothèque de Pierre Bergéwill be brought to auction between now and 2017, and these sales, conducted by Pierre Bergé & Associés in collaboration with Sotheby’s, will go down as some of the most important of the 21st century.
Collecting for Mr. Bergé has always been a highly personal affair, and being French with a passion for literature, his collection has a strong component of it from his country. As his wealth and means for collecting grew, so did his eye for special copies and connections. Many items are signed, belonged to important people, or possess other unique properties. As stated at the end of one of the video interviews available online, he believes that book collecting is like psychoanalysis—“for it to work, you must pay.” And pay he did. Estimates for the entire collection total nearly $30 million, making this one of the most valuable private collections ever assembled. This first sale focuses on items of literary interest, with future sales containing botany, gardening, music, philosophy, and politics.
Serious collectors of French literature are probably salivating at the prospect of obtaining some of the material. However, the collection has no borders, and his favorite authors were often sought in their native tongues. Much more than simply French literature is for sale, and all of it is superb. One such example is lot 79, being a copy of The Personal History of David Copperfield, and includes a signed letter from Dickens to the original owner. Mr. Bergé notes in the catalogue’s opening statement that this is the first “true” book he ever read. Other titans on offer include Dostoievski (lot 94), Robert Louis Stevenson (lot 100), Oscar Wilde (lot 108), and Robert Frost (lot 141).
The scale of this first auction is not huge—188 lots—yet it still spans six centuries, from lot 1, St. Augustine’s Confessions, printed in Strasbourg circa 1470, to lot 188, William Burroughs’ Scrap Book 3, published in New York in 1979. Four video conversations are available online between Mr. Bergé and several literary figures (authors, publishers, and professors), and I highly recommend viewing them; they will be linked at the end of this article. Mr. Bergé discusses his personal philosophy for collecting, as well as some of his favorite books and authors. He reveals in these conversations that very rarely was anything obtained by accident. That in these 188 lots, though they are spread over a large swath of time, each item meant something special to the purchaser and were sought out specifically.
This first sale of La Bibliothèque de Pierre Bergé takes place December 11, 2015 at 3:00 PM CET at Hôtel Drouot in Paris. The auction catalog can be viewed in its entirety here.
For the series of video conversations with Pierre Bergé, two are available through Sotheby's page for the sale, and two are available on the dedicated website's Video page.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 17th July 2025
Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
Sotheby’s Geek Week 2-17 July | New York
Sotheby’s, July 17: Album Containing Four Signed Photographs of Albert Einstein, With Eleven Additional Einstein Photographs, From His Journey to Japan Aboard the S.S. Kitano Maru, 1922. $20,000 to $30,000.
Sotheby’s, July 17: Fred Freeman. Illustration of the Channel Tunnel’s British Portal (Presumably at Folkestone), ca. 1958. $5,000 to $7,000.
Sotheby’s, July 17: Wolfgang Kurt Hermann Panofsky Group of Awards. Pief Panofsky's 1961 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, National Medal of Science, Enrico Fermi Award, and Others. $8,000 to $12,000.
Sotheby’s, July 17: Seymour Cray; Cray-3. Manuscript Cray-3 Logbook, 1989-90. — The Only Significant Cray Manuscript to Come to Auction. $20,000 to $30,000.
Sotheby’s, July 17: Albert Einstein. Typed Letter Signed ("A. Einstein."), to Ann Morrisett, Affirming a Pacifist's Right to Self-Defense, March 21, 1952. $10,000 to $15,000.
Sotheby’s, July 17: Operating and Maintenance Manual for the BINAC Binary Automatic Computer Built for Northrop Aircraft Corporation. Philadelphia, 1949. $30,000 to $50,000.
Sotheby’s, July 17: Steve Jobs Apple Computer Business Card, c. 1977. $5,000 to $8,000.
![<b>Forum, July 17:</b> Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/148a7ca4-9746-44c9-a75e-86229b6f10d2.png "<b>Forum, July 17:</b> Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.")
![<b>Forum, July 17:</b> Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/863855a8-4b41-4512-b168-a4a3eab5d6a6.png "<b>Forum, July 17:</b> Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.")
