Current Events & Trends | July 2021 | Jeremy Dibbell

Rare Books &c. at Auction This Week

Courtesy of Swann Galleries

Guild of Women Binders exhibition binding on a copy of A. F. Pollard's Henry VIII, offered at Swann Galleries this week.

A slightly quieter week in the auction rooms this week, but here's what's coming up:

Valuable Books and Manuscripts at Christie's London on Wednesday, July 14, in 169 lots. An unrecorded copy of the Caxton Cicero (1481), with seven leaves from Caxton's edition of The Knight of the Tower (1484), is estimated at £250,000–350,000. A copy of the 1477 Paris Biblia Latina rates the same estimate. More than 900 woodcuts used at the Polyglott Press of the Sacred Congregation of the Faith between the 1620s and around 1850 could sell for £150,000–200,000.

On Thursday, July 15, Forum Auctions sells 438 lots of Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper, with six volumes of Alfred Stieglitz's Camera Work rating the top estimate at £20,000–30,000. Johann Kraft's Pomona Austriaca (1796) and a collection of manuscript and printed material related to Sir John Betjeman are both estimated at £20,000–25,000. A sixteenth-century manuscript copy of the Prognosticacion for ever of Erra Pater is estimated at £10,000–15,000.

Courtesy of Swann Galleries

Swann Galleries holds a sale titled Focus on Women on Thursday, in 178 lots. A collection of fifteen gelatin silver print photographs by Jessie Tarbox Beals rates the top estimate at $6,000–8,000. Some 375 pieces of correspondence to and from ichthyologist Rosa Smith Eigenmann are estimated at $5,000–7,000, and the same estimate range is assigned to a Guild of Women Binders exhibition binding on a copy of A. F. Pollard's Henry VIII.

On Friday, July 16, Sotheby's New York sells 217 lots of Fine Books and Manuscripts, with a copy of the second edition of Mark Catesby's Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands (1754) expected to lead the way at $200,000–300,000. A copy of the January 23, 1776 proclamation by the Massachusetts General Court, this the copy sent to the Town of Danvers but found not subject to replevin in 2008, is estimated at $80,000–120,000. Nearly every lot in this sale is quite interesting, so do have a look through this catalog.

And at Donald Heald Auctions on Saturday, July 17, Americana Rare Books, Maps, Prints and Photos, in 200 lots. A second edition of Alexander Hamilton's "Reynolds Pamphlet" is estimated at $18,000–20,000, while a complete copy Alexander Pope, Jr.'s Celebrated Dogs of America (1879) could sell for $10,000–15,000.