Proust drawings, Einstein notes, artist books & Mickey Mouse: Auction Preview
Dieter Roth's Ins Meer (1970), one of 100 copies, offered at Rago Art and Auctions this week.
Here are the sales I'll be watching this week:
At Ader on Monday and Thursday, March 13–14, Lettres et Manuscrits Autographes. The first day's 244 lots include two pen-and-ink drawings by Marcel Proust with his notes (€5,000–6,000); another pen-and-ink drawing by Proust, a pastiche portrait of the painter Jacques-Émile Blanche (€4,000–5,000); and a Jacques Lacan manuscript on psychoanalysis (€4,000–5,000). The 209 lots on Tuesday include the manuscript of the memoirs of the Comte de la Vieuville (1697–1771) with other manuscript volumes from his collection (€8,000–10,000); an album of 33 letters written by members of the Bourbon royal family (€6,000–8,000); and a January 1788 Jean-Paul Marat letter (€3,000–3,500).
Rago Art and Auctions sells 295 lots of Artists' Books & Ephemera from an Important Private Collection on Wednesday, March 15. Christopher Wool's Black Book (1989) is expected to sell for $10,000–15,000, and Alighiero Boetti's 1977 book Classifying the Thousand Longest Rivers in the World is estimated at $5,000–7,000. Dieter Roth's Ins Meer (1970), a tin toy airplane and sugar cast into a cardboard box, one of 100 copies, could sell for $3,000–5,000.
On Wednesday at University Archives, 418 lots of Rare Manuscripts, Books & Sports Memorabilia. An August 14, 1950 Albert Einstein note about the theory of relativity and recommending Selig Hecht's Explaining the Atom is expected to sell for $45,000–60,000. A one-page Einstein mathematical manuscript is expected to sell for $35,000–50,000. An 1177 charter signed by Louis VII at Senlis is estimated at $24,000–35,000.
At Chiswick Auctions on Thursday, March 16, 410 lots of Books & Works on Paper. John Speed's A Prospect of the most famous Parts of the World (1676) is expected to lead the way at £12,000–15,000. The first edition in English of Lisiansky's Voyage Round the World, 1803–06 in the Neva (1814) is estimated at £8,000–10,000.
PBA Galleries sells 335 lots of Pre-Code Horror and Underground Comics on Thursday. An original drawing of Mickey Mouse by an unknown artist, inscribed by Walt Disney, is estimated at $10,000–15,000. Two pages of original comic art by S. Clay Wilson published in Bent #1 could sell for $8,000–12,000. At the same estimate is a copy of Tomb of Terror #15 (1954).
