André Breton Collage Letter Leads Rare Books Sale at Christie's

The Christie's online Rare Books and Manuscripts sale running October 27 through November 5 will feature engravings by Dürer and 20th century manuscripts by Jean-Paul Sartre, Pierre Boulez, and André Breton.

A collage-letter by Breton addressed to Louis Aragon in 1918 (estimate: €30,000-€40,000) illustrated with an original pencil portrait of Breton and mounted photographs reflects his earliest experiments with collage.

Other highlights include:

• a group of previously unpublished notes in the hand of Jean-Paul Sartre concerning the development of his autobiographical Les Mots (estimate: €25,000-€35,000)
• an edition of the Canon medicinae written around the year 1012 by Avicenna which remained the standard reference work for the teaching of medicine throughout Europe for centuries, this the first Arabic edition printed on the Medici Press in Rome in 1593 (estimate: €70,000-€100,000)
• La Vie de la Vierge by Albrecht Dürer, formerly in the collections of Henri Gallice and Marcel Jeanson (estimate: €70,000-€100,000)
• a copy of the first French translation of The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli, preserved in its contemporary vellum binding (estimate: €120,000-€180,000)
• a Livre d’heures à l’usage de Paris, an illuminated manuscript created by the Master of Jacques de Besançon and dating from circa 1490 (estimate: €150,000-€250,000)
• an autograph score of Pierre Boulez's Douze notations, the copy Boulez presented to his fellow composer Serge Nigg to whom the work was dedicated (estimate: €30,000-€40,000)