Black Panther Flag, Phillis Wheatley Poems, and a Hypnerotomachia: Auction Preview
A French-Latin dictionary containing many marginal drawings and notes by Toulouse-Lautrec, offered at Sotheby's Paris this week.
At Hindman on Tuesday, February 28, 341 lots of African Americana. A first edition of Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects (1773) with the title page and portions of the frontispiece in facsimile is expected to sell for $8,000–12,000, and an 1858 reward broadside for escaped enslaved people is estimated at $8,000–10,000. A Black Panther Party "Free Huey" flag flown during the 1968 trial of Huey Newton in 1968 could sell for $4,000–6,000. A significant group of documents relating to the employment of formerly enslaved people on the South Carolina plantation of John S. Wilson in the years following the Civil War is estimated at $5,000–7,000.
On Wednesday, March 1, Dominic Winter Auctioneers sells Printed Books, Maps & Original Art, Natural History & The Robert Gillmor Collection, in 394 lots. A 1594 Petrus Plancius world map rates the top estimate of £6,000–9,000. Henry Dresser's History of the Birds of Europe (1871–1896) could sell for £5,000–8,000, and Henry Leonard Meyer's Illustrations of British Birds (c.1835–1844) is estimated at £4,000–6,000. At the same estimate range is Frederick Sander's Reichenbachia (1888–1894).
Ending on Wednesday at Sotheby's Paris, Livres et Manuscrits du XVe siècle à nos jours, dont Cinéma, Art contemporain et Bande dessinée, in 214 lots. One of eight copies of Daniel Buren's Du Vélum au volume (1974–1982) is available, with the estimate available only on request. The Nobel Prize medal for literature awarded to Maurice Maeterlinck in 1911 is expected to reach €90,000–120,000. An 1873 Latin-French dictionary filled with marginal drawings and notations by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec is estimated at €80,000–120,000, and a first edition of the 1499 Hypnerotomachia Poliphili could sell for €60,000–80,000.
On Thursday, March 2, 314 lots of Fine Books & Autographs at Swann Galleries. A 1790 George Washington autograph letter written as president is expected to sell for $25,000–35,000. A set of artist's proofs of Robert Indiana's Numbers (1968) is estimated at $20,000–30,000, and a first printing of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) is estimated at $18,000–25,000.
