Deluxe Rubaiyat, Beatrix Potter Original Illustrations, Mary Stuart’s Isocrates: Auction Preview

Here's what I'll be keeping an eye on this week:

At ALDE on Tuesday, May 28, 263 lots of Reliures Originales & Livres Illustrés Modernes, including a deluxe copy of Anna de Noailles' Les Climats (1928) with a whole bunch of extra material (€50,000–60,000); an edition of Pindar's VIIIe Pythique (1960) with illustrations by Picasso is estimated at €12,000–15,000.

New England Book Auctions sells Literature, Fine Press, Illustrated, Edward Gorey and Miniatures on Tuesday, in 254 lots. Lots include a copy of the Pennyroyal Press edition of Frankenstein with illustrations by Barry Moser ($1,200–1,800); the first American periodical edition of Dickens' Our Mutual Friend ($300–500); and some large lots of miniature books.

At De Baecque on Wednesday, May 29, Literary Treasures of the Renaissance, Part I, in 220 lots. A printed book of hours on vellum, use of Rome, about 1507, is expected to lead the way at €15,000–20,000; a late-fifteenth-century manuscript book of hours on vellum, probably from Naples, is estimated at €6,000–8,000. A Flemish liturgical manuscript from around 1475 is expected to sell for €5,000–8,000, and Alain Bouchard's Les Croniques Annalles (1531) could fetch €4,000–6,000. Part II of this sale will be held on Thursday, in 237 lots. This section of the sale is expected to be led by a copy of the 1548 Basel edition of Isocrates Orationes Omnium, Mary Stuart's copy, bound for Thomas Wotton and later in the collections of Charles Van der Elst and Michel Wittock (€10,000–12,000).

Forum Auctions sells Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper on Thursday, in 384 lots. Beatrix Potter's four original pen-and-ink illustrations for "This Pig went to Market" rate the top estimate at £60,000–80,000; copy number 2 (of 10 copies) of the Sangorski & Sutcliffe jewelled peacock binding edition of Omar Khayyám's Rubaiyat, formerly in the collection of the Marchioness of Winchester is estimated at £40,000–60,000. At the same range is the 1468 second Sweynheym & Pannartz edition of Lactantius (which also contains Dante's first appearance in print). Quite a few other interesting lots in this one, too.

At Freeman's | Hindman on Friday, May 31, 398 lots of American Historical Ephemera and Photography, including a whole-plate daguerreotype image of Front and Sacramento Streets in San Francisco in about 1852–1853 ($30,000–50,000); a group of 32 stereoviews of Alexander Gardner photographs documenting the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty ($25,000–35,000); and an 11-panel photographic panaroma of San Francisco by Eadweard Muybridge taken in 1877 ($22,000–30,000).