Einstein Letter and Lincoln Mourning Order Lead RR Auction Sale

RR Auction's April Fine Autographs and Artifacts sale features nearly 700 lots including a whimsical but powerful sketch of a bull by Pablo Picasso.

Signed and titled Man v. Toro on a postcard addressed to Man Ray, who photographed him during the 1920s and 1930s, it is executed in ink and co-signed by Picasso's second wife Jacqueline Roque, and various French artists and journalists including Edouard Pignon, Hélène Parmelin and Roland Penrose. On the reverse of the 6 x 4 postcard addressed to Man Ray's studio in Paris is a picture of horses in Provence et Camargue. The date is marked "20.10.1957".


Also featured is a presidential manuscript signed by Andrew Johnson, issued shortly after Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Dated May 31, 1865, the document orders the closure of federal offices on June 1 for a national day of mourning and prayer. Edits and strike-throughs reveal this as a working draft of Johnson's official proclamation.


Another key Lincoln item is a March 2, 1864, document signed by President Abraham Lincoln ratifying a treaty with Great Britain for the final settlement of the claims of the Hudson's Bay and Puget's Sound Agricultural Companies. In the partly printed document, Lincoln authorizes the Secretary of State to affix the Seal of the United States to his ratification of the treaty which resolved lingering international claims tied to early land and agricultural enterprises in the Pacific Northwest. The treaty provided $325,000 in compensation to British shareholders after the U.S. took sole control of the region following the Treaty of 1846.

Also offered is a handwritten scientific letter from Albert Einstein to mathematician Herman Muntz as Einstein worked toward his Unified Field Theory. Dated circa late 1928/early 1929, the letter includes Einstein's own equations and reflections on gravitation and electromagnetism. "I am quite firmly convinced that the solution of our problem is quite close," he writes, "but it will require a few more happy inspirations."