Gutenberg Bible Bifolium, 20th Maine Private's Diary, Sarum Master Bible: Auction Preview

Here are the auctions I'll be watching this week:

At Sotheby's London on Tuesday, July 2, 73 lots of Important Medieval Manuscripts from the Collection of the Late Ernst Boehlen, including a fragmentary bifolium from the Sacramentary of St. Boniface, likely written in eighth-century Northumbria (£250,000–350,000). A twelfth-century glossed manuscript of the Book of Genesis, in a binding with ninth-century pastedowns, is expected to sell for £150,000–200,000, and a nearly-complete thirteenth-century Bible illuminated by the Sarum Master could fetch £100,000–150,000. Other lots include a bifolium from the thirteenth-century Codex Roncioni containing fifteen cautery diagrams (£70,000–90,000) and a bifolium from the Gutenberg Bible (£50,000–70,000).

Ending on Tuesday is the Freeman's | Hindman online sale of American Historical Ephemera and Photography, in 314 lots. A group of some 600 letters and documents related to the Sioux, Assiniboine, and Ponca Nations and their Washington-based attorney Daniel B. Henderson rates the top estimate at $2,000–3,000. Letters and a partial 1863 diary by Private Elisha Oaks Drake of the 20th Maine are estimated at $1,500–2,000.

At Forum Auctions on Wednesday, July 3, 313 lots of Editions 1500–2024, including Andy Warhol's Vesuvius (1985) and Maurits Cornelis Escher's Ant (1943), both estimated at £40,000–60,000.

Forum Auctions holds an online sale of Books and Works on Paper on Friday, July 5, in 200 lots. A first edition of Thomas Hardy's second novel, Under the Greenwood Tree, shares the top estimate of £1,000–1,500 with a first issue copy of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, a second issue ("cheap paper") copy of D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, and five volumes of William Curtis' Flora Londinensis.