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Forum Auctions
Online Sale
Books and Works on Paper
Ending 13th December 2023Forum, Dec. 13: Ackermann (Rudolph) [Views of Country Seats...], 146 hand-coloured aquatints from 'Repository of Arts’. £1,000 to £1,500.Forum, Dec. 13: Campbell (Colen) & others. Vitruvius Britannicus, or The British Architect..., 5 vol., [1751-1819]. £7,000 to £10,000.Forum, Dec. 13: Austen (Jane). The Novels, 12 vol., Edinburgh, John Grant, 1911. £1,500 to £2,000.Forum, Dec. 13: Murder broadside.- Horrid and barbarous murder of a female by cutting off her head, arms, and legs,… £200 to £300. -
Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 2:
John Ford Clymer, U.S. Troops' Triumphant Return to New York Harbor, oil on canvas, circa 1944.Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 44:
Edward Gorey, Illustration of cover and spine for Fonthill, a Comedy by Aubrey Menen, pen and ink, 1973.Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 50:
Harrison Cady, frontispiece for Buster Bear's Twins by Thornton W. Burgess, watercolor and ink, 1921.Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 54:
Ludwig Bemelmans, Pepito, portrait of Pepito from the Madeline book series, mixed media.Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 79:
Gluyas Williams, Fellow Citizens Observation Platform, pen and ink, cartoon published in The New Yorker, March 11, 1933.Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 86:
Thomas Nast, Victory, – for the moment, political cartoon, pen and ink, 1884.Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 91:
Mischa Richter, Lot of 10 cartoons for Field Publications, ink and pencil, circa 1940.Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 111:
Arthur Getz, Sledding In Central Park, casein tempera on canvas, cover of The New Yorker, February 26, 1955.Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 124:
Richard Erdoes, Map of Boston, illustration for unknown children's magazine, gouache on board, circa 1960.Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 155:
Robert Fawcett, The old man looked him over carefully, gouache on board, published in The Saturday Evening Post, June 9, 1945.Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 170:
Violet Oakley, Portrait of Woodrow Wilson, charcoal and pastel, circa 1918.Swannm Dec. 14: Lot 188:
Robert J. Wildhack, Scribner's for March, 1907, mixed media. -
CHRISTIE’S
Valuable Books and Manuscripts
London auction
13 December
Find out moreChristie’s, Explore now
TREW, Christoph Jacob (1695–1769). Plantae Selectae quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini in hortus curiosorum. [Nuremberg: 1750–1773]. £30,000–40,000Christie’s, Explore now
VERBIEST, Ferdinand (1623–88). Liber Organicus Astronomiae Europaeae apud Sinas restituate. [Beijing: Board of Astronomy, 1674]. £250,000–350,000Christie’s, Explore now
PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALICE & NIKOLAUS HARNONCOURT. Master of Jean Rolin (active 1445–65). Book of Hours, use of Paris, in Latin and French, [Paris, c.1450–1460]. £120,000–180,000Christie’s, Explore now
A SILVER MICROSCOPE. Probably by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), c.1700. £150,000–250,000Christie’s, Explore now
AN ENGLISH HORARY QUADRANT
C.1311. £100,000–150,000 -
Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Roberts (David) & Croly (George). The Holy Land, Syria, Idumae, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia. Lond. 1842 - 1843 [-49]. First Edn. €10,000 to €15,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Incunabula: O'Fihily (Maurice). Duns Scotus Joannes: O'Fihely, Maurice Abp… Venice, 20th November 1497. €8,000 to €12,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: An important file of documents with provenance to G.A. Newsom, manager of the Jacob’s Factory in Dublin, occupied by insurgents during Easter Week 1916. €6,000 to €9,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: WILDE (Oscar), 1854-1900, playwright, aesthete and wit. A lock of Wilde’s Hair, presented by his son to the distinguished Irish actor Mícheál MacLiammóir. €6,000 to €8,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Heaney (Seamus). Bog Poems, London, 1975. Special Limited Edition, No. 33 of 150 Copies, Signed by Author. Illus. by Barrie Cooke. €4,000 to €6,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Binding: Burke, Thomas O.P. (de Burgo). Hibernia Dominicana, Sive Historia Provinciae Hiberniae Ordinis Praedicatorum, ... 1762. First Edition. €4,000 to €6,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: COLLINS, Michael. An important TL, 29 July 1922, addressed to GOVERNMENT on ‘suggested Proclamation warning all concerned that troops have orders to shoot prisoners found sniping, ambushing etc.’. €3,000 to €4,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Scott Fitzgerald (F.) The Great Gatsby, New York (Charles Scribner's Sons) 1925, First Edn. €2,000 to €3,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Yeats (W.B.) The Poems of W.B. Yeats, 2 vols. Lond. (MacMillan & Co.) 1949. Limited Edition, No. 46 of 375 Copies Only, Signed by W.B. Yeats. €1,500 to €2,000.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of the Russian Empire, Description in English and French, Lg. folio London (S. Gosnell) 1803. First Edn. €1,000 to €1,500.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Miller (William) Publisher. The Costume of Turkey, Illustrated by a Series of Engravings. Lg. folio Lond.(T. Bensley) 1802. First Edn. €800 to €1,200.Fonsie Mealy’s, Dec. 12-13: Mason (Geo. Henry). The Costume of China, Illustrated with Sixty Engravings. Lg. folio London (for W. Miller) 1800. First Edn. €1,400 to €1,800
Rare Book Monthly
Articles - December - 2007 Issue
<i>In The News</i>: A Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, and Elvis Museum For Sale
This early copy of the Declaration of Independence sold for $693,500 at a Skinner auction.
By Michael Stillman
Auction sales for two of the most important documents in the history of human liberty top this month's stories In The News. A date has now been set for what auctioneer Sotheby's describes as "the birth certificate of freedom," England's Magna Carta. The sale will be held at 7:00 p.m. on December 18, 2007, at Sotheby's in New York. We recommend you not be late as this is the only lot being offered in this sale.
Offered is one of a handful of manuscript copies of the "Great Charter" produced in the 13th century. This is a 1297 or official version of a document of rights first created in 1215. It is one of only two copies held outside of the U.K. (the other is in Australia). This copy was held for some five centuries by the Brudenell family until sold to Ross Perot's Perot Foundation for $1.5 million in 1983. That will undoubtedly prove to be a bargain as this sale is expected to smash all records for items in the books and manuscripts field. The price estimate is an astounding $20-$30 million.
The Magna Carta will be available for viewing at Sotheby's daily beginning on December 7. Sotheby's has prepared an extensive, 56-page report on the Magna Carta, which will be of note to anyone interested in this great document, even if you do not prove to be the winning bidder. It is available at http://www.sothebys.com/app/paddleReg/paddlereg.do?dispatch=eventDetails&event_id=28596 (Click the link under "Overview" to download a copy).
The other enormously important document to come up for auction was a very early broadside printing of the Declaration of Independence. This copy was printed in Boston less than two weeks after the original document was signed, between July 12 and 16, 1776. It was offered by Skinner in Boston on November 19. Against a modest estimate of $70,000-$90,000, it sold for $693,500. Though a fair number of these broadsides were printed along the eastern seaboard in the days after the signing, the heavy handling and fragility of the paper destroyed most. Fewer than 100 are believed to survive.
A disappointing art sale at Sotheby's led to a huge decline in the company's stock price, and may have signaled caution to high end book buyers as well. The sale was of modern and impressionist art, and it took in $270 million against an estimate range of $355 to $494 million. Almost half of the items sold either below the low estimate or failed to sell at all. A Van Gogh, estimated at $28-$35 million, painted two weeks before he died, failed to sell. The same was true of a Picasso estimated at $25-$35 million (we are expected to pay more for another Picasso than a 13th century Magna Carta? What is wrong with us?). Punishment in the marketplace was swift and brutal, as investors cut almost one-third off Sotheby's stock price the following day.
