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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
Book Catalogue Reviews - June - 2008 Issue
Abolition from the William Reese Company
By Michael Stillman
The William Reese Company has issued a new list of books headed Abolition. Most of these works, naturally, pertain to slavery and the attempts to end (or defend) it. While most items relate to the United States, there are many that tackle the issue in the West Indies and with their colonial rulers in England. Additionally, there are items focused not so much on the issue of slavery per se, but about other issues dealing with human rights and freedom. These are issues of fundamental concern to a free people, worthy of our attention still today, as while they evolve, concern for freedom never goes away. Now, here are a few items Reese has to offer.
One of the earliest American abolitionists was Anthony Benezet. Indeed, while rumblings were just beginning to be heard for liberty from British authority, Benezet was pointing to the oppression of slaves within the colonies' midst. "How many of those who distinguish themselves as the Advocates of Liberty, remain insensible and inattentive to the treatment of thousands and tens of thousands of our fellow men, who...are at this very time kept in the most deplorable state of Slavery, in many parts of the British Dominions?" The question would haunt America for another century. Item 5 is the 1767 first British edition (published a year after the Philadelphia edition) of A Caution to Great Britain and Her Colonies, in a Short Representation of the Calamitous State of Enslaved Negroes in the British Dominions. Priced at $750.
Benezet would go on to found the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery in 1774. While there was much else going on at the time to fill a patriot's time, he still managed to attract many leaders of the coming revolution to his cause. Officers of the organization included Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Rush and Tench Coxe. In 1787, the anti-slavery organization updated its constitution, just as America was preparing its first such document. Item 65 is The Constitution of the Pennsylvania Society, For Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, and the relief of Free Negroes, Unlawfully Held in Bondage. Begun in the Year 1774, and Enlagred [sic]...1787. Item 65. $3,250.
It was not long before calls for abolition would be heard in the halls of the new congress. Item 1 is Memorials Presented to the Congress...by Different Societies Instituted for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. These were speeches made before the House of Representatives by leaders of various state abolitionist societies in December of 1791 (and printed in 1792). The presentations were referred to a committee, where all such things disappear. $3,750.
Here is the name of an abolitionist you know well, but not for that cause. At the age of 22, P.T. Barnum was publishing a liberal newspaper in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He attacked slavery, church leaders, and those who sought to silence him. Young Barnum was sentenced to 60 days in jail for libel, and on his release, supporters managed to round up a crowd of 1,500 to rally in his defense. It was evidently quite a show, and leads one to believe that Barnum must have learned much from it he would put to good use later on. Item 25 is The Nation's Bulwark An Oration, on the Freedom of the Press, Delivered at the Courthouse in Danbury...on the Liberation of P.T. Barnum, by Theophilus Fisk, published in 1832. $375.