Rare Books &c. at Auction This Week

Image: Bonhams

Photograph from a presentation album of images from the 1914–1916 Shackleton Expedition, offered at Bonhams this week.

A very busy week coming up in the auctions rooms:

On Tuesday, February 25, Swann Galleries sells Classic & Contemporary Photographs, in 334 lots. Two lots are estimated at $50,000–75,000: a 1940 print of Edward Steichen's White Lotus and Margaret Bourke White's The George Washington Bridge (1933). The latter has been in the family of the original recipient (Bourke-White's assistant Robert Edward Kiehl) since the mid-1930s. A presentation album containing more than 100 photos of Peruvian sites and people (1947) by Martin Chambi and M. Gonzalez Salazar is estimated at $30,000–45,000.

Also closing on Tuesday is an online sale at Doyle New York, A Collection of Edward Gorey, in 201 lots.

Bonhams London holds a Travel & Exploration sale on Wednesday, February 26. The 226 lots include a complete twenty-volume set of the Description de l'Égypte (1809–1822), estimated at £150,000–200,000. A newly-recorded deluxe presentation album containing 79 carbon prints of Frank Hurley's photos from the 1914–1916 Shackleton expedition is estimated at £30,000–40,000.

Two sales at ALDE on Thursday: Bibliothèque Georges Pompidou and Éditions Originales du XIXe au XXIe Siècle. The first comprises 141 lots and the second 187, with French literature forming the main part of each section.

At University Archives on Thursday, a 287-lot sale of Autographs, Books & Relics Include Kerouac Estate & Hemingway. A typewriter used by Hemingway to write A Moveable Feast, loaned to Hemingway in 1959 by his friend and biographer A.E. Hotchner, is estimated at $50,000–100,000. Retained drafts of Samuel Colt's patent documents for "revolving cylinder guns" could sell for $30,000–45,000. Jack Kerouac's final typewriter, accompanied by a purchase receipt, is estimated at $12,000–18,000. A rare letter written by Zachary Taylor as president is estimated at $18,000–20,000.

On Friday, February 28, Binoche et Giquello sells 328 lots of Livres Avant Garde Surréalisme. Much of interest here to the Henri Michaux collector in particular, perhaps.

Rounding out the week, Potter & Potter sells the third part of the Magic Collection of Jim Rawlins on Saturday, February 29. The 488 lots include a very wide range of magic-related material, but some of the printed matter includes a 1918 "Chung Ling Soo Mysteries" poster ($4,000–6,000), a "Horace Goldin: The Tiger God" poster from around 1910 ($3,000–5,000), and a slightly earlier poster from around 1900 for "Servais LeRoy: A Really Marvellous Conjuror" ($3,000–4,000).

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