A Collector’s Collection:The Rosenbach Museum & Library
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AT: This brings me back to a question that I asked in a different way earlier in this interview. What do you think will stand as Dr. Rosenbach’s legacy in the world of book dealing and collecting?
MB: Well, here I’ll defer to Harper’s Magazine, which about a year and a half ago wrote a piece in which they said something to the effect that every American university library should have a statue of Dr. Rosenbach outside it to commemorate Dr. Rosenbach’s contributions to the world of Special Collections.
Dr. Rosenbach was a tremendously important dealer. He was instrumental in building some of the great institutional collections in the U.S. And he was instrumental in building these great institutional collections through working with private collectors. He straddled the private collector/public institution line.
Many eulogies of Dr. R were published after his death; the last eulogy will never be finished. The hammer of an auction sale, the enthusiasm of a collector, the acquisitiveness of a librarian, and the salesmanship of a dealer add to it whenever great books are bought or sold. Social changes ended the era which A.S.W. Rosenbach personified. There will be no more Huntingtons or Morgans or Folgers; there will be no more men who can build huge libraries of that kind in their own lifetimes. But there is less need for them now, for a wealth of resources has come, and continues to come, to America. In less spectacular, but no less important, ways will the building of collections go on. Dr. Rosenbach believed in the importance of rare books for scholarship and in the pure joy and excitement of collecting. That belief prevails in public and private collections throughout the country. That was Dr. R’s greatest sale.
---Rosenbach, pp.587-588.
AT: Is there anything else you’d like to say about the Museum and its collections before we draw this conversation to a close?
MB: Just that the collection is eclectic. There are many individual categories in which it could conceivably grow. This is not a question.
ALDE, Apr. 8: GUEVARA (ANTONIO DE). Histoire de Marc-Aurèle, Empereur Romain, vray miroir et horloge des Princes. Paris, Pierre et Galliot du Pré, frères, 1565. €3,000 to €4,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: HEURES DE LA VIERGE. Horæ in laudem beatissimæ virginis Mariæ ad usum Romanum. Paris, Charles L'Angelier, 1556. €4,000 to €5,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: MONTAIGNE (MICHEL DE). Les Essais. Édition nouvelle, trouvée après le deceds de l'autheur… Paris, Abel L'Angelier, 1595. €6,000 to €8,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: [ROJAS (FERNANDO DE)]. Celestina, tragicomedia di Calisto et Melibea, tradotta de lingua castigliana in italiano idioma… Venise, 1531. €2,000 to €3,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: CAMÕES (LUÍS DE). Os Lusiadas. Lisbonne, Pedro Crasbeeck, 1613. €2,000 to €3,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: CERVANTES (MIGUEL DE). El Ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Bruxelles, Roger Velpius & Huberto Antonio, 1611. €6,000 to €8,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: LA FONTAINE (JEAN DE). Fables choisies, mises en vers. Paris, Denys Thierry et Claude Barbin, 1678-1694. €6,000 to €8,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: CERVANTES (MIGUEL DE). El Ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Madrid, Joaquin Ibarra, 1780. €3,000 to €4,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: DIDEROT (DENIS) ET JEAN LE ROND D'ALEMBERT. Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Paris, 1751-1765. €15,000 to €20,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: [LIVRE TISSÉ]. LAMARTINE (Alphonse de). Les Laboureurs. Poème tiré de Jocelyn… Lyon, J. A. Henry, 1883. €8,000 to €10,000.
ALDE, Apr. 8: [LIVRE TISSÉ]. Livre de prières tissé d'après les enluminures des manuscrits du XIVe au XVIe siècle. Lyon, [A. Roux], 1886. €5,000 to €6,000.
Sotheby’s Books, Manuscripts & Objects from Three Important Collections Open for Bidding 2-17 April
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: [Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun]. Le Roman de la Rose, [Geneva or Lyons, c.1481], first printed edition of the most important medieval French vernacular poem. £200,000 to £300,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Castiglione. Il libro del cortegiano. [Venice], April 1528, first edition, in a magnificent binding by Jean Picard for Jean Grolier. £100,000 to £150,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Jacobus de Cessolis. Schachzabelbuch, Strasbourg, 1483, von der Lasa copy. £50,000 to £70,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: World Championship, 1972. A collection of 84 press photographs of the famed match between Spassky and Fischer. £2,000 to £3,000.
Sotheby’s, Apr. 2-17: Ben Franklin. Autograph letter signed, to Lord Shelburne, British Prime Minister, during peace negotiations, November 1782. £15,000 to £20,000.
