A Collector’s Collection:The Rosenbach Museum & Library
Herman Melville's American Gothic-style bookcase containing his personal collection of first-edition literary classics.
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.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 11: Darwin and Wallace. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties..., [in:] Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, Vol. III, No. 9., 1858, Darwin announces the theory of natural selection. £100,000 to £150,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 11: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue, inscribed by the author pre-publication. £100,000 to £150,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 11: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Autograph sketchleaf including a probable draft for the E flat Piano Quartet, K.493, 1786. £150,000 to £200,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Hooke, Robert. Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses. London: James Allestry for the Royal Society, 1667. $12,000 to $15,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Chappuzeau, Samuel. The history of jewels, first edition in English. London: T.N. for Hobart Kemp, 1671. $12,000 to $18,000.
Sotheby’s, Dec. 12: Sowerby, James. Exotic Mineralogy, containing his most realistic mineral depictions, London: Benjamin Meredith, 1811, Arding and Merrett, 1817. $5,000 to $7,000.
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Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 156: Cornelis de Jode, Americae pars Borealis, double-page engraved map of North America, Antwerp, 1593.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 206: John and Alexander Walker, Map of the United States, London and Liverpool, 1827.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 223: Abraham Ortelius, Typus Orbis Terrarum, hand-colored double-page engraved world map, Antwerp, 1575.
Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 233: Aaron Arrowsmith, Chart of the World, oversize engraved map on 8 sheets, London, 1790 (circa 1800).
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 239: Fielding Lucas, A General Atlas, 81 engraved maps and diagrams, Baltimore, 1823.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 240: Anthony Finley, A New American Atlas, 15 maps engraved by james hamilton young on 14 double-page sheets, Philadelphia, 1826.
Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 263: John Bachmann, Panorama of the Seat of War, portfolio of 4 double-page chromolithographed panoramic maps, New York, 1861.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 265: Sebastian Münster, Cosmographei, Basel: Sebastian Henricpetri, 1558.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 271: Abraham Ortelius, Epitome Theatri Orteliani, Antwerp: Johann Baptist Vrients, 1601.
Swann Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Color Plate Books December 9, 2025
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 283: Joris van Spilbergen, Speculum Orientalis Occidentalisque Indiae, Leiden: Nicolaus van Geelkercken for Jodocus Hondius, 1619.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 285: Levinus Hulsius, Achtzehender Theil der Newen Welt, 14 engraved folding maps, Frankfurt: Johann Frederick Weiss, 1623.
Swann, Dec. 9: Lot 341: John James Audubon, Carolina Parrot, Plate 26, London, 1827.
![<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 11:</b> Darwin and Wallace. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties..., [in:] <i>Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society,</i> Vol. III, No. 9., 1858, Darwin announces the theory of natural selection. £100,000 to £150,000.](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/00d5fd41-2542-4a80-b119-4886d4b9925f.png "<b>Sotheby’s, Dec. 11:</b> Darwin and Wallace. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties..., [in:] <i>Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society,</i> Vol. III, No. 9., 1858, Darwin announces the theory of natural selection. £100,000 to £150,000.")
