Tom Lecky – until recently Department Head, Books Manuscripts at Christie’s New York – has moved on, if not far, to establish himself in business. This summer he assumed control of Riverrun Books Manuscripts in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, a firm that, since 1978, has specialized in fine material from all periods. He works both as a bookseller and appraiser, and maintains a close relationship with Christie’s as a consultant. His career has been meteoric.
His resume, beyond his 17 years at Christie’s, includes four and a half years as Head of Books and Prints at William Doyle Galleries, now...
In 1999 Ken Lopez, a specialist in modern first editions, wrote a long analysis of the rare book collecting world as it looked on the cusp of the 21st century. The article appeared at a time when t...
Dan Whitmore is a book dealer in southern California. He is 35 and never experienced the halcyon days of bookselling two decades ago. He was in high school then and would go on to Middlebury Coll...
Perhaps the second most popular item in the books and paper field is maps. There are classic maps that go for hundreds of thousands of dollars I'd love to own, but are a bit out of my price range. ...
Editor's Note: This is part II of a series begun in the August issue of Rare Book Monthly.
Welcome back to the dark and smelly streets of the French capital in the 18th century, with the same g...
Set your cap for this! Guest Series: “Old Books / New Editions” by Guest Writer, Maureen E. Mulvihill, a collector scholar with The Princeton Research Forum, NJ. Three articles, with contemporary ...
The fall auction season, the busiest time of the year, is about to begin. The number of sales in the book and paper field will rapidly rise, and continue to build all the way to its crescendo in mi...
Recently I purchased a 160-page manuscript account of the founding of a private library in Ulster County in December 1810: The Pleasant Valley Library Society.
The account begins with:
A L...
Old World Auctions, the online-only auction house specializing in antique maps, globes, charts, and atlases, has a sale taking place at the time of this month’s Rare Book Monthly online publishing....
The smell of old books is intoxicating to those who love antiquarian tomes. The collector does not need sight to sniff out a classic library. Love is blind. It is one of those fragrances that is no...
Winner’s Auctions and Exhibits, the Jerusalem-based auction house I first wrote about in July’s Rare Book Monthly, is hosting another sale this month, Auction No. 095. With the house’s focus on Jud...
Being offered for sale this month is the ultimate piece of ephemera for the field of books. This one pertains to the great twentieth century writer Truman Capote, noted for In Cold Blood, and the n...
An Irish librarian who stole many valuable books from his employer over a long period of time was fortunate to be tried before a sympathetic judge. Different judges and jurisdictions look at crimes...
This month, the third annual Brooklyn Antiquarian Book Fair will be holding court from Friday, September 9th through Sunday, September 11th. With almost 100 dealers exhibiting a wide array of colle...
Forum Auctions, the new London-based house which held its first auctions in July, is kicking off the fall season with a 539-lot sale of Fine Books and Works on Paper taking place Thursday, Septembe...
The dog days of summer are the slowest time of the year for the preparation of new bookseller catalogues. This past month, we received only six. Oak Knoll Books offers a selection of miniatures, fi...
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
Gonnelli: 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 2025
Gonnelli 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 2025
Gonnelli: 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 2025
Gonnelli: 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, May 14: Taylor (John). All the Workes of John Taylor the Water-Poet..., 1630. £1,000-1,500
Dominic 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.
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
![<b>Gonnelli:</b> Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/dc0b1dc0-f7c8-40b6-a5a6-870689484c07.jpg "<b>Gonnelli:</b> Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€")
![<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> Roberts (Henry, after). <i>Chart of the NW Coast of America and NE Coast of Asia ...,</i> [1784]. £500-800](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/033cf239-2b91-4588-aca2-50ad0a9c43b3.jpg "<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> Roberts (Henry, after). <i>Chart of the NW Coast of America and NE Coast of Asia ...,</i> [1784]. £500-800")
![<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> World. Ortelius (Abraham), <i>Typus Orbis Terrarum,</i> [1598]. £2,000-3,000](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/3ecbc3d4-52ef-41c5-8a8d-d4a158a51253.jpg "<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> World. Ortelius (Abraham), <i>Typus Orbis Terrarum,</i> [1598]. £2,000-3,000")
![<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> Bible [English]. [<i>The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New...,</i> 1613]. £2,000-3,000](https://ae-files.s3.amazonaws.com/AdvertisementPhotos/fcfb0b9a-4f59-4dc8-87fd-1dfdf90611dc.jpg "<b>Dominic Winter, May 14:</b> Bible [English]. [<i>The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New...,</i> 1613]. £2,000-3,000")
