Frida Kahlo's Copy of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe
On Tuesday of this week, this tattered copy of Edgar Allan Poe is expected to sell for more than $20,000 at a Leslie Hindman Auctioneers sale in Chicago. Why so pricey, you ask? Provenance. It was owned by celebrated Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, whose artsy marginalia fills the book. So proclaims the catalogue, "The inscriptions and collages in Kahlo's personal copy of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe form an extraordinary record of the artist's creative process in addition to revealing an important literary influence of her work. The item demands further study of Frida Kahlo's motivations, her selection of specific works, and the pointed references to her relationship with Diego Rivera."
The other block-buster (pun intended) is a three-volume folio edition of History of the Indian Tribes of North America with Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes of the Principal Chiefs Embellished with One Hundred and Twenty Portraits. From the Indian Gallery in the Department of War, at Washington. It is estimate at $30,000-$40,000.
The selection for this LH sale is broad. There is so much here for the collector who doesn't mind spending a few hours with the catalogue, for he or she will surely find something of personal interest: a hand-colored Merian engraving (from ... Insectorum Surinamensium), several lots of incunable leaves, also single leaves from the First Folio, several lots of medical books from the Collection of Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, some Civil War material, a first edition of Naked Lunch, fine bindings, works on paper, some basketball memorabilia, and coins! Should be an exciting sale.
Photos courtesy of Leslie Hindman.
[Update: Kahlo's volume sold for $24,000]
