Paris: Le Salon International du Livre Rare... 2019 - The Mermaids’ Song
- by Thibault Ehrengardt
Sunflowers and a most unusual tobacco box.
Sunflowers and Natural Beauties
Entering the booth of Librario Bado E. Mart (Italy) was like entering an 18th century cabinet of curiosities with huge open books displaying wonderful hand-coloured plates of various plants and animals. The huge engraving of a Flos Solis maior (sunflower) taken from the work of Basilius Besler (1713) was a striking sight. “The book contains more than 300 engravings, depicting 1,000 flowers from 700 various species,” the bookseller said. “This is one of the most expensive books of the 18th century.” Money has always been part of book collecting, and to buy this particular one at the time was probably even crazier than to buy it today.
Miscellaneous
My trip drove me to various beauties such as a 16th century edition of Villon’s poems—the other Rimbaud, the seller claimed—once the property of the Duc de la Vallière ($28,000); the manuscript of the convict Henri Berryer’s L’Exil dans l’enfer ($28,000), and an original wooden printing plate. “This is the portrait of Réaumur,” the bookseller said. This renowned French physician (1683-1757) had one of the finest cabinets of curiosities of his time. “I sell it with a fine edition of his works in five volumes.” A valuable addition, indeed! I also came across one of the 110 copies of Tabubu by Rosny and Maurice Lalau (1932), an “Art Deco masterpiece illustrated with 71 works made of gold and silver.” ($11,000) There were also various objects more or less linked to books, including a peculiar tobacco-box from the 18th century. Olivier Becker, from Vanves (Paris), was more than pleased to show it off. “If you open it in the middle, it is but a regular tobacco-box. But! If you lift up this small golden part on the top, then...” I leaned forward—a woman’s derriere! At the SILROA, mermaids’ songs spring from everywhere.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 26th March 2026
Forum, Mar. 26: Book of Hours.- Heures a lusaige de Romme, printed on vellum, with 14 full-page illuminated miniatures, Paris, N. Higman for J. de Brie, [c.1521]. £20,000-30,000
Forum, Mar. 26: France.- Book of Hours, perhaps Use of the Abbey of Saint-Gildas de Rhuys, with thirteen miniatures surviving from an original cycle of at least twenty, [c. 1430]. £15,000-20,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Milton (John). Paradise lost. A Poem in Ten Books, first edition, Pforzheimer's sixth state, S. Simmons, 1669. £8,000-12,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Blake (William). Illustrations of the Book of Job, one of 215 first issue "Proof" copies, this one of 65 copies on "French" paper, Published by the Author, March 8, 1825 [but March, 1826]. £15,000-20,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 26th March 2026
Forum, Mar. 26: Christie (Agatha). The ABC Murders, first edition, The Crime Club, 1936. £15,000-20,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Halley (Edmund). Astronomiae Cometicae Synopsis, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, no. 297, pp.1882-99, March 1705. £10,000-15,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Haytham (Ibn al) [known as Alhazen]. Opticae Thesaurus...Item Vitellonis Thuringopoloni libri X..., first edition, Basel, August, 1572. £20,000-30,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Kepler (Johannes). Dioptrice seu demonstratio eorum quae visui & visibilibus propter conspicilla non ita pridem inventa accidunt, first edition, Augsburg, David Frank, 1611. £12,000-18,000
