Rare Books at Auction This Week
A lighter week this time around, with just a trio of auctions to watch:
On Tuesday, March 13, Swann Galleries sells 19th & 20th Century Prints & Drawings, in 570 lots. Edward Hopper's 1919 etching "House by a River" leads the pre-sale estimates, at $100,000-150,000. A 1949 Picasso lithograph, "La Colombe," rates a $50,000-80,000 estimate. A fair number of Dalí, Miró, and Chagall prints could also fare well.
The following day at Sotheby's London, the Political Cartoon Collection of Jeffrey Archer, in 225 lots. A 1798 anti-Jacobin cartoon by James Gillray, one of just four completed from a series titled "Consequences of a Successful French Invasion," is estimated at £20,000-30,000. A number of Max Beerbohm designs will go to the block, including the 1929 "Prime Ministers in My Day" (pictured below) and 1943 "Mr. Churchill" (both estimated at £6,000-8,000).
Heritage Auctions sells Western Americana and Texana on Saturday, March 17. One of just three documented copies of an 1835 broadside containing a message by Texas Governor Henry Smith has an opening bid of $15,000. Francis Moore, Jr.'s Map and Description of Texas (1840), which includes the first printed illustration of the ruins of the Alamo, opens at $10,000.
Image credit: Sotheby's
