-
Sotheby's
Sell Your Fine Books & ManuscriptsSotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USDSotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USDSotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USDSotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USDSotheby's
Sell Your Fine Books & ManuscriptsSotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USDSotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBPSotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBPSotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR -
Gonnelli
Auction 59
Antique prints, paintings and maps
May 20th 2025Gonnelli: Pietro Aquila, Psyche and Proserpina,1690. Starting price 140€Gonnelli: Jacques Gamelin, Memento homo quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, 1779. Starting price 300€Gonnelli: Giorgio Ghisi, The final Judgement, 1680. Starting price 480€Gonnelli
Auction 59
Antique prints, paintings and maps
May 20th 2025Gonnelli Goya y Lucientes Francisco, Los Proverbios.1877. Starting price 1000 €Gonnelli: Domenico Peruzzini, Long bearded old man, 1660. Starting price 2200€Gonnelli: Enea Vico, Leda and the Swan,1542. Starting price 140€Gonnelli
Auction 59
Antique prints, paintings and maps
May 20th 2025Gonnelli: Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€Gonnelli: Carlo Maratta, Virgin Mary and Jesus, 1660. Starting Price 1200€Gonnelli: Louis Brion de La Tour, Sphére de Copernic Sphere de Ptolemée / Le Systême de Ptolemée. Le Systême de Ticho-Brahe…, 1766. Starting price 180€Gonnelli
Auction 59
Antique prints, paintings and maps
May 20th 2025Gonnelli: Marc’Antonio Dal Re, Ville di Delizia o Siano Palaggi Camparecci nello Stato di Milano Divise in Sei Tomi Con espressevi le Piante…, Tomo Primo, 1726. Starting price 7000€Gonnelli: Katsushika Hokusai, Bird on a branch, 1843. Starting price 100€ -
Dominic Winter Auctioneers
May 14
Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & ExplorationDominic Winter, May 14: (Choiseul-Gouffier, Marie). Voyage Pittoresque de la Grece, 2 vols, 1st edition, 1782-1822. £2,000-3,000Dominic Winter, May 14: Gentlemen's Magazine and Historical Chronicle, by Sylvanus Urban, 11 volumes. £700-1,000Dominic Winter, May 14: Shackleton (Ernest). The Heart of the Antarctic, 2 vols, 1st ed, presentation copy, 1909. £2,000-3,000Dominic Winter Auctioneers
May 14
Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & ExplorationDominic Winter, May 14: Drayton (Michael). Poly Olbion..., London: 1622. £2,000-3,000Dominic Winter, May 14: Scheuchzer (Johann Jacob). Ouresiphoites Helveticus, 4 parts in 1, 2nd ed, 1723. £3,000-4,000Dominic Winter, May 14: Roberts (Henry, after). Chart of the NW Coast of America and NE Coast of Asia ..., [1784]. £500-800Dominic Winter Auctioneers
May 14
Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & ExplorationDominic Winter, May 14: World. Maffei (Giovanni), Indiarum orientalium Occidentaliumque Descriptio..., 1589. £1,200-1,500Dominic Winter, May 14: World. Ortelius (Abraham), Typus Orbis Terrarum, [1598]. £2,000-3,000Dominic Winter, May 14: Bible [English]. [The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New..., 1613]. £2,000-3,000Dominic Winter Auctioneers
May 14
Printed Books & Maps, Travel, Atlases & ExplorationDominic Winter, May 14: Taylor (John). All the Workes of John Taylor the Water-Poet..., 1630. £1,000-1,500Dominic Winter, May 14: Pierpont Morgan Collection. Catalogue of the Morgan Collection of Chinese Porcelains, 1904 & 1906. £2,000-3,000 -
Swann, May 15: Lot 4: Helena Bochoráková-Dittrichová, Z Mého Detství Drevoryty, Prague: Obzina, 1929. First trade edition, signed by the artist. $4,000 to $6,000.Swann, May 15: Lot 10: Nancy Cunard, Negro Anthology, with a tipped-in A.L.S. to Karl Marx's niece, 1934. First edition. $3,000 to $5,000.Swann, May 15: Lot 14: Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 1845. First edition. $4,000 to $6,000.Swann, May 15: Lot 17: Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, inscribed first edition, 1959. $2,000 to $3,000.Swann, May 15: Lot 28: Margaret Hill Morris, Private Journal Kept during a Portion of the Revolutionary War, for the Amusement of a Sister, 1836. First edition. $3,000 to $4,000.Swann, May 15: Lot 38: Anna Sewell, Black Beauty: The Autobiography of a Horse, 1877. First edition. $3,000 to $5,000.Swann, May 15: Lot 43: Gertrude Stein, Portrait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia, signed presentation copy with photograph of Stein, 1912. First edition. $8,000 to $12,000.Swann, May 15: Lot 48: Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, first edition in the scarce dust jacket, 1927. $6,000 to $8,000.Swann, May 15: Lot 54: Katherine Dunham, large archive of material from her attorney, 1951-53. $20,000 to $30,000.Swann, May 15: Lot 55: Margaret Fuller Signed Autograph Letter, New York City, 1846. $3,000 to $5,000.Swann, May 15: Lot 92: Sonia Delaunay, illus. & Tristan Tzara, Juste Present, deluxe edition with original gouache, 1961. $20,000 to $25,000.Swann, May 15: Lot 93: Flor Garduño, The Sonnets of Shakespeare, 2006. Limited edition. $6,000 to $8,000.
Rare Book Monthly
Important Maps at an Important Time
By Bruce McKinney
Frank Benevento did not buy his first important map ten years ago with the idea of becoming a canary in the coal mine in 2010 but circumstances make his sale of 71 important [primarily world] maps in London on May 6th a gut check for the map world. His material goes under the hammer at Sotheby's 34-35 New Bond Street, the right place in an uncertain time, to see if important maps are coming through the recession and recovery intact. Many experts in the field expect it.
Mr. Benevento, of Palm Beach Florida, is recovering from serious illness and sells reluctantly.
Cathy Slowther, who has managed the sale for Sotheby's from negotiation with Mr. Benevento this past year to the calling of the first lot by Roger Griffiths at 2:30 pm in London on May 6th, is cautiously optimistic. "The material is important, the market less certain. I expect both dealers and serious collectors to be contending." The collection was on display in New York during ABAA week and is currently on exhibition in London.
By virtue of its scale and condition lot 67, Joannes Blaeu's Atlas major, eleven bound volumes of maps printed between 1662 and 1681 is attracting wide interest. It contains 589 maps, plans, views and plates; many double-page and all in original color. The set was purchased at the Wardington Sale in 2005 and the "bespoke cabinet by Columbo Mobili of Milan," commissioned shortly thereafter. In this piece important maps and history are combined in a remarkable presentation setting. The estimate is BP 180,000 to 220,000, the set arguably a complete compilation of early maps and images for the collector who, in buying this, wishes to achieve completeness with a single bid. Mr. Benevento spent $300,000 to buy the atlases.
Lot 8, Paolo Forlani's 1570 world map presents another kind of opportunity. Maps provide graphic evidence of the advance of human knowledge of the continents and oceans. As such, the first appearance of continents, islands and names on maps provide collectors with documentation of unfolding discovery. This extremely early map expresses "Terra Incognito" in the southern hemisphere as rivaling the northern continents in scale. It is estimated BP 100,000 to 150,000. Mr. Benevento spent $253,250 to acquire it.