Rare Books &c. at Auction This Week

A very busy week coming up:

At Bonhams London on Tuesday and Wednesday, February 15–16, The Connoisseur's Library Sale, in 837 lots. There are a few sets of bindings included, but this sale is largely library furniture and ornaments.

Dominic Winter Auctioneers sells 360 lots of Printed Books, Maps, Decorative Prints & Watercolours on Wednesday. Estimates in this one are mostly in the mid-three-figure range, with Dr. John Harrison's collection of some 3,500 35mm aviation slides sharing the top estimate of £700–1,000 with the 1999 Taschen edition Helmut Newton.

At University Archives on Wednesday, 454 lots of Rare Autographs, Manuscripts, Photographs & Books. A 1946 Einstein letter to his friend Michele Besso and a 1919 Einstein letter to George Lockemann about relativity are each expected to fetch $45,000–55,000. A 1780 letter to the governor of Pennsylvania, signed twice by George Washington, is estimated at $30,000–40,000; the same estimate has been assigned to an 1857 reward poster for escaped enslaved people.

On Thursday, February 17, 280 lots of Books and Works on Paper at Forum Auctions. A copy of the 1951 Teriade edition of Lucian of Samosata's Dialogues, in a designer binding by Pierre-Lucien Martin, rates the top estimate of £3,000–4,000. A 1494 Nuremberg edition of the works of Thomas à Kempis could sell for £1,000–1,500.

At Freeman's on Thursday, Books and Manuscripts, in 149 lots. A rare copy of the Land Ordinance of 1785 is expected to fetch $80,000–120,000. The first American edition of the Catholic Douay Bible, printed at Philadelphia in 1790, is estimated at $20,000–30,000, and a 1783 Benjamin Franklin letter to consul Thomas Barclay could sell for $12,000–18,000.

Sotheby's New York holds a 100-lot sale titled A Grand Vision: The David H. Arrington Collection of Ansel Adams Photographs on Thursday. Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, printed about 1943, is expected to lead the sale at $500,000–700,000.

Rounding out the week on Thursday, Fine Books & Autographs at Swann Galleries, in 326 lots. An artist's proof set of Robert Indiana's The Book of Love (1997) rates the top estimate at $75,000–90,000. Other lots of interest include Richard Tuttle's The Missing Portrait (2008), one of just ten copies, which could sell for $12,000–18,000; and the pop art portfolio One Cent Life, which is estimated at $20,000–30,000.