Christie's Worlds Beyond: Fine Books and Manuscripts sale ends on Thursday, June 4. David Roberts' own copy of his Holy Land and Egypt and Nubia (1842–1849), one of just four known copies with the tinted proof plates on separate leaves and with a contemporary wooden storage cabinet, could sell for £30,000–40,000. A volume of 184 engraved maps and plates from Vincenzo Coronelli's Atlante Veneto (1691–1692) is estimated at £25,000–35,000. One of just two known copies of Thomas Willson's two-sheet 1747 Exact Prospect of the Magnificent Stone Bridge at Westminster is expected to fetch £15,000–20,000.
Rounding out the week on Friday, Bibliothèque Robert Beauvillain at Binoche et Giquello in Paris. The 349 lots include the Heures de G et H, an early sixteenth-century Book of Hours for the use of Rome, made in France (probably Bourges), with text in Latin and French (€600,000–800,000). The Heures de Pierre Soppite et Marie Deschevert, made in the first decade of the fifteenth century in Paris, with text in Latin, is estimated at €250,000–350,000. Quite a bit of interesting early printing and fine bindings in this sale, so do have a look.
Rare Books &c. at Auction This Week
Thomas Willson's 1747 Exact Prospect of the Magnificent Stone Bridge at Westminster, selling at Christie's this week.
Here are some of the sales I'll be watching this week:
Forum Auctions will sell Books and Works on Paper on Wednesday, June 3. The 238 lots include a trio sharing a top estimate of £1,000–1,500: an inscribed first edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007); Edward Topsell's The Historie of Foure-Footed Beasts (1607), a translation of Gesner's Historiae Animalium; and a volume containing a second edition of Gervase Markham's Cheape and Good Husbandry for the Well-Ordering of All Beasts (1616) and a first edition of William Lawson's A New Orchard and Garden (1618), with defective works at both ends. Forty volumes of the Naval Chronicle (1799–1818) are estimated at £800–1,200, and a copy of The House of Pooh Corner (1928), in a vellum pictorial binding by the Cottage Bindery could sell for £400–600.
On Thursday, June 4, PBA Galleries sells Comic Books: Pre-Code Horror, Silver Age Marvel and Undergrounds, in 340 lots. Expected to lead the way with an estimate of $15,000–20,000 is the June 1953 Weird Mysteries #5, described as "one of the most lurid covers of the pre-Code era." The original artwork for Trina Robbins' "Wonder Person Gets Knocked Up!" (1974), which she submitted for publication in Comix Book magazine but was rejected by the editors, is estimated at $7,000–9,000. It was finally published in the 2013 volume The Best of Comix Book. A small collection of letters from S. Clay Wilson to Charles Plymell could sell for $5,000–8,000.
Thomas Willson's 1747 Exact Prospect of the Magnificent Stone Bridge at Westminster, selling at Christie's this week.
