Maurice Sand drawings, Aldine imprint, Ornithology: Auction Preview
Opening from Constantinos Lascaris' Erotemata (published in 1495 by Aldus Manutius), offered at Sotheby's this week.
Here are the sales I'll be watching this week:
At Sotheby's Paris on Tuesday, July 4, Livres et Manuscrits — dont des bibliothèques Alain Schimel et Hubert Heilbronn, in 154 lots. Sharing the top estimate of €100,000–150,000 are a volume of the correspondence of Roger de Bussy-Rabutin and his daughter, the Marquise de Coligny, with Madame de Sévigné and others; and a copy of Stendahl's Histoire de la peinture en Italie (1817) with annotations by the author. The 1495 Aldine edition of Constantinos Lascaris' Erotemata is expected to sell for €60,000–80,000.
Ader sells 358 lots of Lettres et Autographes Manuscrits on Tuesday, July 4, and another 232 lots on Wednesday, July 5. Nearly 4,000 original drawings by Maurice Sand for an unpublished history of costume rate the top estimate in the first day's sale, at €15,000–20,000. An original drawing by Victor Hugo is estimated at €4,000–5,000. The top lot in the second day's sale is expected to be three volumes of the correspondence of Théodose, comte de Lagrené (1800–1862) and his family, estimated at €4,000–5,000.
Ending on Wednesday, Christie's Paris online sale of Livres rare et Manuscrits, in 210 lots. Pierre Sonnerat's Voyage aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine fait par ordre du roi, depuis 1774 jusqu’en 1781 (1782), this copy on large paper with the plates colored, is estimated at €50,000–70,000. A rare copy of Molière's Le Tartuffe (1669) in a contemporary binding could sell for €45,000–60,000, and a missal for the use of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris from around the turn of the fifteenth century is expected to sell for €40,000–60,000.
On Wednesday, Forum Auctions sells 186 lots of Natural History Books and Works on Paper in an online sale. A copy of the 1861 octavo edition of Audubon's Birds of America rates the top estimate at £10,000–15,000. Henry Dresser's History of the Birds in Europe (1871–1896) is expected to sell for £6,000–8,000, and a first edition of Alexander Wilson's American Ornithology (1808–1814) is rated at £5,000–7,000. Much more here of interest to the natural history collector.
Hindman's online sale of American Historical Ephemera & Photography ends on Friday, July 7. The 320 lots include eighty Edward S. Curtis photogravures of Native American subjects, estimated at $2,000–3,000. A large group of Confederate bonds is expected to sell for $1,500–2,000.
On Saturday, July 8, Heritage Auctions holds a 97-lot Historical Platinum Signature sale, which includes the Philip D. Sang copy of the first Massachusetts broadside edition of the Declaration of Independence, printed at Salem around July 14–16, 1776; it is expected to sell for more than $1 million. Other lots include a 22-page manuscript by Sigmund Freud on psychoanalysis of folklore, which has a starting bid of $250,000.
