Through Philip’s interest in fine and decorative arts and A.S.W.’s in rare books and manuscripts, the brothers created their own success. In 1925 they bought their home at 2006 DeLancey Place – Philip and A.S.W. Rosenbach had arrived and their new address was proof. Their business was growing quickly, and their reputations along with it. Philip and A.S.W. owned shops in New York and Philadelphia and had clients named Widener, Folger, and Huntington. In 1949 they purchased their second home on DeLancey at number 2010….This was the brothers’ last home – A.S.W. died in 1952 and Philip in 1953.
The Art of Daily Life on DeLancey Place
The lives of the Rosenbach brothers straddled the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and reflected the associated social and economic changes. Influential works like The Decoration of Houses by Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman, Jr. (published in 1897, coincidentally the year that Philip Rosenbach began his furniture business) instructed the upper class in the relationship of architecture and décor to proper behavior and hygiene. Economist Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) gave the designation “conspicuous consumption” to the accumulation of material wealth as the modern expression of power, success, and social honor. When Philip and A.S.W. began The Rosenbach Company in 1903, selling decorative arts, books, and manuscripts, the customers they sought were the very people Wharton, Codman, and Veblen addressed.
The display of material wealth mattered in a mannered society. J.P. Morgan, who along with his son would become a Rosenbach customer in 1930, made the pages of the New York Herald in 1889 for his receipt of a three-hundred piece, $50,000 dessert service made by Tiffany & Co…..In the late nineteenth century manufacturers of luxury goods began issuing catalogues that listed appropriate gifts for ladies and gentlemen. Among these gifts were the types of objects the Rosenbachs began to accumulate after their move to DeLancey Place. For the Rosenbachs, having an elegant residence filled with fine objects not only signaled their economic arrival, but was intertwined with their work. They both sold and lived with fine objects; they sought wealthy clients and may have needed to emulate them materially to attain them professionally.
Rare Book Monthly
A Collector’s Collection:The Rosenbach Museum & Library
Herman Melville's American Gothic-style bookcase containing his personal collection of first-edition literary classics.
Rare Book Monthly
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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 AprilSotheby’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.