At Sotheby’s in New York on May 17th the Codex Sassoon was sold to the American Friends of ANU – Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, made possible by a donation from Alfred H. Moses for $38,126,000. Occasionally some material’s value and importance transcends the normal and expected high quality that auctions regularly offer. The Codex hit the triple bingo with old, rare, and significant to a large and well healed religious community. Religion has long been a powerful motivator to acquire relevant material. Such opportunities randomly occur. Here are several other examples.
The original printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon brought $35,000,000 in 2017.
The Old South Church’s copy of the Bay Psalm Book was sold at auction to David Rubenstein in November 2013 for $14.2 million.
The St. Cuthbert Gospel, a pocket gospel book that was buried with Saint Cuthbert (d. 687), was subsequently removed from his coffin in 1104 and became associated with the Durham Cathedral. This divine relic brought $14.3 million in April 2012.
The Sherborne Missal, an illuminated missal used in Sherborne Abbey, was purchased for $21.2 million by the British Library in 2001.
The Rothschild Prayerbook, an illuminated book of hours thought to date to 1505-10, originally owned by Anselm Salomon von Rothschild was purchased by Kerry Stokes in January 2014 for $13.6 million.
As well, if you go back further the Gospels of Henry the Lion, that were commissioned by Henry the Lion (1129/1131-1195) for the Brunswick Cathedral was purchased by the German government in December 1983 for $11.7 million.
And there is the Babylonian Talmud, one of 14 complete sets printed by Danial Bomberg that are known to exist. It was purchased by Stephan Loewentheil December 2015 for $9.32 million.
Of course there were many other significant acquisitions of non-religious materials that tower within their categories but, while religion has seemed to lose some luster in every day life, their icons continue to be deeply appreciated.
Collecting lives on even as their form and intensity shifts through the decades.
The acquisition of the Sassoon Codex reminds us that very important material finds solid footing through periods of uncertainty. Congratulations to Mr. Alfred H. Moses. Mazel tov!
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today These are the Times that Try Men's Souls. Paine, Thomas. Sold for US$152,900.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today The First Printed Work on Political Economy. Sold for US$127,000.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today Signed Lincoln Photograph with Son Tad. Sold for US$76,700.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today First Expanded Edition of Common Sense. Paine, Thomas. Sold for US$76,700.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today Presentation Copy of Hemmingway's First Book. Sold for US$70,350.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today St. John's Gospel on Vellum, A Fragment in Greek, 5th Century. Sold for US$70,350.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today Only A Handful of Surviving Copies. Joyce, James. Ulysses. Sold for US$58,880.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today A Pivotal Step in Einstein's Development of General Relativity. Sold for US$51,200.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today A Fine Jewelled Binding Signed by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Sold for US$56,320.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today Joyce's Annotated Typescript Draft for Finnegan's Wake. Sold for US$48,640.
Bonhams: Consign With Us Today One of 30 Pre-Publication Copies, Inscribed by Hemingway to Spencer Tracy, Who Played "The Old Man". Sold for US$83,050.
Sotheby’s Year in Review
Sotheby’s Year in Review: A Rare Hebrew Bible with Micrographic Masorah. Sold: 1,514,000 USD
Sotheby’s Year in Review: "The Freedman's Primer.” Sold: 241,300 USD
Sotheby’s Year in Review: Smith, William. "The Map that Changed the World." Sold: 139,700 USD
Sotheby’s Year in Review: Psalter, C13th. Illuminated Psalter. Sold: 330,200 GBP
Sotheby’s Year in Review: Lincoln, Abraham. The abolition of slavery. Sold: 13,697,500 USD
Sotheby’s Year in Review: Vergilius. Opera, Venice, Aldo Manuzio, 1501. Sold: 1,041,400 USD
