Chat Noir Poster, Snakes, and Champollion: Auction Preview

Original maquette design by Edward McKnight Kauffer for an unpublished British Petroleum poster, offered at Bonhams this week.
Here are the sales I'll be watching this week:
At Lyon & Turnbull on Wednesday, February 5, 393 lots of Books & Manuscripts, including a January 28, 1554 letter signed by Queen Mary I to her advisor Lord Paget about Wyatt's rebellion (£15,000–20,000); a June 1, 1584 letter from the Earl of Dudley to Queen Elizabeth I (£8,000–12,000); and Louis de Freycinet's Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes (1811), expected to sell for £6,000–8,000.
Ending on Thursday, January 6, Bonhams London's sale of Vintage Posters, in 158 lots. A maquette by Edward McKnight Kauffer for an unpublished British Petroleum advertising poster rates the top estimate at £10,000–12,000. A 1921 Leonetto Cappiello poster for Bitter Campari and Adolphe Mouron Cassandre's Nord Express poster from 1927 are each estimated at £6,000–8,000, while Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen's Chat Noir poster (1896) could sell for £5,000–7,000.
At Forum Auctions on Thursday, 290 lots of Books and Works on Paper, with Marcus Vigerius's Decachordum Christianum (1507) expected to lead the way at £3,000–4,000. A second edition copy of Ralph Holinshed's Chronicles (1587) with some leaves in facsimile is estimated at £1,000–1,500. Edward Topsell's Historie of Serpents (1608) could sell for £800–1,200.
PBA Galleries sell 127 lots of Rare Books & Manuscripts on Thursday, with a first edition copy of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813) rating the top estimate at $40,000–60,000. Jules Carret's Le Déplacement Polaire Preuves des Variations de l'Axe Terrestre (1877), inscribed by the author to Charles Darwin, and with some of Darwin's annotations, could sell for £30,000–50,000. A copy of Champollion's Panthéon Égyptien (1821–1825) with the bookplate of Czar Nicholas II is estimated at $25,000–35,000.