Hamburg, Germany — Grossing total proceeds of over € 1.8 million*, the Rare Books auction at Ketterer Kunst in Hamburg on July 6 and 8, 2020 did not only realize an excellent result but also saw more than 40 lots with five figure prices. "That's almost twice as many as usual", says company owner Robert Ketterer. In addition, an upgraded range of offers in the Online Only Auction accompanying the saleroom auction was also met with great approval. The star of the evening sale was Thomas Robert Malthus.

Top 5:

€ 80,000* calling price: € 50,000
No. 050: Thomas Robert Malthus - An Essay on the Principle of Population. London. 1798

€ 68,750*  calling price: € 50,000
No. 016: Georg Braun/ Franz Hogenberg- Civitates orbis terrarum. Cologne. 1612-1618

€ 65,000*  calling price: € 19,000
No. 075: Gustav Klimt - Das Werk. 1914

€ 58,750* calling price: € 20,000
No. 007: Hartmann Schedel - Liber chronicarum. 1493

€ 52,500* calling price: € 20,000
No. 001: Latin Book of Hours - for the use of Troyes. Around 1480

Christoph Calaminus, auctioneer and head of the Rare Books Department at Ketterer Kunst in Hamburg expressed his content: "It was a great auction with excellent results." He continues: "In unusual times like these I am ever the more happy that we - despite corona - saw both active domestic and international participation. Digital bidding was widely accepted and around 20% of all lots were sold online."

One of the sale's main attractions was a milestone of modern economics: Thomas Robert Malthus' "Essay on the Principle of Population" (lot 50) in which he explained the principle of exponential growth as early as in the 18th century, was particularly popular with British book lovers. However, eventually an American book dealer from the East Coast carried the trophy home. Called up at € 50,000 he honored the first edition of the influential classic with a result of € 80,000*.

Georg Braun's and Franz Hogenberg's "Civitates orbis terrarum" (lot 16) was particularly sought-after among German collectors. In the end, however, a Hungarian online bidder stood his grounds against two opponents on the phone and let the price for the most accomplished of all town books soar to € 68,750*.

An English trader honored Gustav Klimt's "Das Werk", the only monograph released during the artist's lifetime (lot 75), with a threefold of the calling price of € 19,000. With a result of € 65,000* he relegated several competitors from Germany and the U. S. to places second and beyond.

Global interest was sparked among far more than a dozen active bidders when the first German edition of Hartmann Schedel's "Liber chronicarum" (lot 7), one of the most richly illustrated incunabula of all, was called up. The product of the largest book enterprise of its days was particularly popular with bidders from Germany, but book lovers from the rest of Europe, especially from Italy, Austria and Switzerland, as well as from the U. S., also entered in the race. Eventually a French trader on the phone succeded with a result of € 58,750* while a generous absentee bid placed by an American made second place only.

The Evening Sale kicked off with a "Latin Book of Hours" (lot 1) which an Italian trader heavily defended over the phone against a colleague from England and a German book lover, as well as a good number of commissions and several internet bidders. Eventually he made the richly illuminated copy from the Champagne sure for himself for a result of € 52,500* or more than twice the calling price of € 20,000.

Called up with a price of € 33,000, a complete copy of the "Bulla aurea" (lot 6) from Karl IV was in great demand with Swiss bidders, who eventually had to give in to the strong will of their northern neighbors. The one-of-a-kind illustrated incunabula edition from the collection of Otto Schäfer will remain in Germany from where a collector offered to pay the remarkable sum of € 50,000*.

A rare dedication copy of Karl Marx's main work saw a sharp increase, as it was severely fought for by German and English traders. In the end a bidder from Great Britain had the last word by granting € 47,500* for "Das Kapital" (lot 57) - nearly a seven-fold of the calling price.

A likewise impressive price increase was realized for a "Biblia aethiopica" that was called up at € 7,000 (lot 13). Against the strong opposition on the world-wide web, a Canadian collector raised the price for the first edition of the New Testament in Ethiopian over the phone to a result of € 43,750*, which is more than six times the starting price.

"Abrahams Opfer" (lot 189) saw the sharpest increase of the entire auction. Made by the great Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn in 1655, the impressive scene caught the fancy of a Californian trader for whom the striking scene from one of the best known stories of the Old Testament was worth € 18,750*.

More interesting lots are available in the post auction sale until July 31.

Australia — For the first time in its 43-year history, the Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB) have united to publish a joint catalogue containing nearly $1,000,000 of rare books, manuscripts and artworks for sale.

Usually in July, the rare bookshops and their customers would gather together at the University of Melbourne to celebrate their love of books at the Melbourne Rare Book Fair. Due to the extraordinary circumstances of COVID-19, this cannot take place in 2020.

For the first time, the booksellers have united to publish their first joint catalogue online, to be launched on Thursday, 9 July at 10:00 a.m. on their website www.anzaab.com.

This catalogue, a combined effort of 26 businesses located across Australia and even expatriates in New York, includes exceptional books, manuscripts and artworks, many being presented for sale for the first time.

Highlights include icons such as Max Dupain’s Sunbaker, rare art books by Gustave Klimt, Andy Warhol, and William Blake, first editions by George Orwell, Patti Smith, and A. A. Milne, as well as a diverse range of antiquarian material from across the globe.

The earliest book is Secundus Liber Do Spiritus intelligentie onicus subtilis. (Duns Scotus' Sentences), published in 1513. Known as a scholastic metaphysics text, the “subtle doctor” was highly regarded in the Medieval world.

While so much has changed due to coronavirus the booksellers and their customers remain passionate about collecting and have adapted well to sharing their passion online.

Amor librorum nos unit -- the love of books unites us

For any queries please contact :
Douglas Stewart, ANZAAB President
doug@douglasstewart.com.au
+613 90660200

Dallas – It was meant to be Joseph Christian Leyendecker’s final cover for The Saturday Evening Post – the illustrator’s iconic New Year’s Baby, dressed only in a diaper and a soldier’s garrison cap, thumbing his way to the front as World War II raged on. But the 1943 painting never made its way to the magazine – or to the public’s view.

Not until Heritage Auctions’ American Art event on Wednesday.

The entirety of the sale realized more than $6 million. And the fact that New Year's Baby Hitching to War sold for $275,000 – or more than 4.5 times its pre-auction estimate – should not surprise; nor that it merited a spirited round of bidding from clients online and over the phone; nor that this was the fifth-highest price paid for a J.C. Leyendecker work. After all, it was done by the hand of the man whose red, rotund Santa Claus became one of the 20th century’s most enduring images.

What grabs attention here is what will become of the proceeds from its sale: Most of the money made will be returned to the family that originally owned New Year's Baby Hitching to War. Its consignor, a man named Chadd Wilkinson, will keep but a fraction of a fraction of the money made.

Wilkinson was long ago gifted the piece by the family of E. Huber Ulrich, chairman and CEO of Curtis Publishing Co., The Saturday Evening Post’s parent. He had the family’s blessing to sell New Year's Baby Hitching to War, which the Post had rejected in 1943 because editors feared it would break the heart of mothers sending their sons off to war.

On Wednesday, Wilkinson and Ulrich’s granddaughter Linda gathered around the computer to watch the online auction.

And, he said, “that was extremely exciting,” especially as bidders fought over Leyendecker’s work, driving it from an opening bid of $82,500 to its final sale price of more than a quarter of a million dollars. “We never thought it would go that high.”

When it sold, Wilkinson said, Linda began to cry.

“She has just lost her mother a month or so ago,” he said. “She remembered it hanging in the house,” as though it were a member of the family.

Which is why, in the end, Wilkinson did not believe he could pocket the sale’s proceeds.

The morning after the sale, Wilkinson did the extraordinary: He emailed Heritage and said, “I want the majority to go back to the family.”

Which is precisely what will happen.

“It’s exceedingly rare for a consignor to defer such a substantial amount of money,” said Heritage Auctions’ Senior Vice President Ed Jaster.

Said Wilkinson, “This is truly an experience I’ll never forget.”

New York — Swann Galleries’ Thursday, July 16 sale of Illustration Art is set to feature a standout offering of works from literary classics, magazine story illustrations, original advertising designs, as well as vintage and contemporary New Yorker art.

Original illustrations by enduring favorites lead a section of the auction dedicated to children’s literature. Among the cherished characters featured are Laurent de Brunhoff’s Babar as he and his family take in the Notre Dame Cathedral, published in Babar’s World Tour, 2005 ($10,000-15,000); a 2014 Valentine illustration of Hilary Knight’s Eloise ($25,000-35,000); a group of six 1982 pencil studies of Max and the monsters from Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are ($20,000-30,000); three ink studies of Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad published in Frog and Toad Together, 1972 ($5,000-7,500); and Ludwig Bemelmans’ charming watercolor portrait of Madeline ($4,000-6,000).

Additional children’s book highlights include a small run of works by William Pène du Bois, with notable lots featuring a group of 27 watercolor and mixed-media drawings from The Hare and the Tortoise and The Tortoise and the Hare, 1972 ($4,000-6,000). A colorful collage, ink and gouache of Black Cat by Eric Carle from his 1973 classic Have You Seen My Cat? is set to come across the block ($6,000-9,000); as well as Peter Newell’s illustration Beau—ootiful Soo---oop!, 1903, published in Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark and Other Poems and Verses ($6,000-9,000). A run of works by contemporary illustrators Allan Neuwirth and Jane Breskin Zalben rounds out the section.

A wide-ranging section of literary and magazine illustrations is led by N.C. Wyeth’s original 1916 title-page artwork for The Black Arrow. A Tale of the Two Roses by Robert Louis Stevenson ($150,000-250,000). The iconic work is offered alongside material by other giants from the Golden Age of Illustration, particularly those from the Brandywine School, including Wyeth’s mentor, Howard Pyle, with the oil-on-canvas frontispiece for Landegon by W.G. Beymer, published in Harper’s Monthly Magazine in November, 1909 ($20,000-30,000), and a likely preliminary study for Century Illustrated Magazine, circa 1905, by Violet Oakley ($4,000-6,000). A run of magazine illustrations contains a number of pieces for The Saturday Evening Post by Stevan Dohanos, as well as the Mexican caricaturist and cartoonist Arias Bernal.

Advertising and design is represented with a rare-to-market original by Leslie Ragan, circa 1930, likely executed for the back of a calendar ($4,000-6,000); a circa 1928 postcard design starring George Studdy’s beloved Bonzo the Dog ($1,000-1,500); and a quirky shoe advertisement by Gottfried Sieben created before 1918 ($1,500-2,500).

A range of costume and set designs for theater include works by Erté with Couleurs / Le Trapéziste, a 1970 costume design ($6,000-9,000), and Décore de Laideronnette, a 1949 set design ($5,000-7,500). And, lively cast illustrations for the 1974 Off-Broadway sensation The Great MacDaddy, and the 1940 Broadway revival of Charley’s Aunt by Al Hirschfeld, featuring African-American and Latinx actors stands-out in the theater section ($10,000-15,000 and $20,000-30,000, respectively).

The ever-popular New Yorker section encompasses works by iconic cover artists, such as Arthur Getz with Basketball Game, published February 5, 1966 issue, and Rooftop Party, published September 5, 1970 ($2,000-3,000, each), and Garrett Price’s June 3, 1950 featuring Mason’s Island in Mystic Connecticut ($1,200-1,800). Recent cover art features George Booth’s Bite the Bullet, published April 19, 1993 ($1,500-2,500), and Danny Shanahan’s High Rise, published March 7, 2016 ($2,500-3,500). Time-honored cartoonists Lee Lorenz and Frank Modell are offered alongside current contributors, such as Bob Eckstein, Ben Schwartz and P.C. Vey.

Limited previewing (by appointment only) will be available from July 13 through July 15, to be scheduled directly with the specialist in advance and conforming to strict safety guidelines. Swann Galleries staff will prepare condition reports and provide additional photographs of material on request. Advance order bids can be placed with the specialist for the sale or on Swann’s website, and phone bidding will be available. Live online bidding platforms will be the Swann Galleries App, Invaluable, and Live Auctioneers. The complete catalogue and bidding information is available at www.swanngalleries.com and on the Swann Galleries App.
 
Additional highlights can be found here.

Dallas – Twenty years and almost 400,000 movie posters later, Heritage Auctions’ Grey Smith thought he’d seen – and sold – them all. Then it came time to compile the almost 700 lots for the July 25-26 Movie Posters event.

And there they were: the rarities once thought lost or out of reach, some of movie-poster collecting’s crowning achievements. The never-before-seens. The never-before-solds.

“This job is exciting every day,” said Smith, Heritage’s Director of Vintage Posters. “When a new rarity comes in, it’s thrilling. That’s what makes this such a wonderful hobby. Anyone who says they’ve seen it all in movie posters isn’t telling you the truth. There is always material out there that’s exciting.”

That’s especially true in the July sale, which offers among its many gems these astonishing finds:

The gorgeous one-sheet for Sunrise, director F.W. Murnau’s first American film, released in 1927 and considered one of the greatest silent films of all time (and a proto film noir, to boot). Shockingly, it’s the only known one-sheet poster for the landmark film that won three Academy Awards, among them Best Cinematography and Best Unique and Artistic Picture, a long-retired honor once on par with Best Picture. And peering over the roses is the beatific image of Best Actress winner Janet Gaynor, the unnamed wife who’s nearly the victim of a murderous plot conceived by her philandering husband and his big-city mistress.

There are some lobby cards and window cards for Sunrise known to exist. But nothing like this – nothing this large, this meaningful, this significant. “It’s such a great piece,” said Smith.

There’s also the unsettling, electrifying French poster for Universal Studios’ Frankenstein, released in France six months after its U.S. debut in 1932. Collectors covet any original Universal horror poster, among them the terrifying, unforgettable teaser for 1933’s The Invisible Man also in the summer sale and another of which only a handful are known to exist.

But the Frankenstein poster – by the great artist Jacques Faria – is particularly sought-after, as it’s the only known copy and has never before been offered by Heritage.

“I was tickled to get that,” said Smith. “It’s the original release – and really, really scarce.”

So, too, has the one-sheet for Chapter 10 of The Master Mystery, in which illusionist Harry Houdini and cinema’s first robot make their on-screen debuts. And the original Soviet artwork advertising Sergei Eisenstein and Grigoriy Aleksandrov’s 1928 monumental recreation of the Russian Revolution, October 1917: Ten Days that Shook the World.

Another “lost” poster in the July event is the three-sheet for The Lost Squadron, the 1932 film starring Richard Dix, Joel McCrea and Robert Armstrong as World War I aces who find dangerous work as stunt pilots in Hollywood. Smith says just one, maybe two copies are known to exist. But this is the first time in his two decades at Heritage one has come to auction.

The same can be said of the one-sheet for Warner Bros.’ 1936 release The Walking Dead, starring Boris Karloff – another that, until now, has eluded Grey Smith’s grasp. But it speaks to the depth and breadth of this auction that this work of horror – by no less than Michael Curtiz, the maker of Casablanca! – is only one of many premier pieces available in the July sale.

“Our auctions are a great opportunity for collectors to find the rarest material,” Smith said, “and to have a real shot at it.”

The history of film is spread across the 683 lots in the auction, from gorgeous keepsakes representing cinema’s earliest achievements (1927’s Metropolis and 1931’s M) to its most enduring titles (1942’s Casablanca, represented here by several memorable and highly coveted posters, and 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, with rare French and Spanish offerings) to modern-day franchises and blockbusters, including the Star Wars and James Bond films.

“This hobby still is in its infancy,” said Smith as he looks over the works spread across the sale. “In years to come, these will be hanging in museums, and people will say, ‘You could have purchased some of these posters for relatively inexpensive prices once upon a time at auction.’ Who won’t know something like Frankenstein 300 years from now? Film is our cultural heritage.”

And their posters, too.

Heritage Auctions’ Movie Posters event takes place July 25-26. To view high-resolution images of all the lots, register at HA.com.

London — A striking portrait of the novelist E. M. Forster by his friend, the art historian and painter Roger Fry, set a new world record for the artist at auction when it sold for £325,000 at Bonhams Modern British and Irish Art sale on July 1. It had been estimated at £30,000-50,000. The sale made a total of £2,000,000 with 80% sold by lot and 85% sold by value.
 
This was the first sale held at Bonhams that members of the public were able to attend in person since the Government’s relaxation of lockdown regulations. Bidders in the auction room remained socially distanced at all times and participated keenly in the auction.
 
Fry and Forster were prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group, the early 20th century artists, writers and freethinkers who in Dorothy Parker’s memorable phrase, ‘lived in squares, painted in circles, and loved in triangles’. The Group scandalised society at the time and has continued to fascinate succeeding generations.
 
Fry and Forster were neighbours in Surrey and became close friends. Writing in the summer edition of Bonhams Magazine, the biographer Matthew Sturgis said, “The portrait – painted at a time when Fry, steeped in the Parisian experiments of Post-Impressionists, Fauves and Cubists, was striving to introduce something of their daring simplification and anti-naturalism into his own practice – was an upshot of that happy friendship.”

The sale also offered a rare self-portrait by Vanessa Bell (1879-1961). With her sister Virginia Woolf, Vanessa was a core Bloomsbury figure and acknowledged as among its finest artists. The portrait sold for £56,000 having been estimated at £20,000-30,000.

Bonhams Director of Modern British and Irish Art Chris Dawson said, “We are delighted with the result. Roger Fry’s portrait of E.M. Forster is an extraordinary and important work and it’s fitting that it set a new world record for the artist at auction. The high price paid for the painting and for other works by Bloomsbury artists, including Vanessa Bell’s wonderful self-portrait, reinforces the continuing appeal of this key artistic and literary movement.”
 
Other highlights included:
 
Sir Winston Churchill, maquette for the monument in Parliament Square by Ivor Roberts-Jones (1916-1996). Sold for £118,810 (£65,000-85,000).
 
A Steamship and a Schooner Passing the Coast (recto); A Path Through a Wood (verso) by Alfred Wallis (British, 1855-1942).  Sold for £100,000 (£50,000-70,000).
 
Reclining Figure: Pointed Legs by Henry Moore O.M., C.H. (1898-1986). Sold for £93,800 (£50,000-70,000).
 
Portrait of a Young Man by Christopher Wood (1901-1930). Sold for £87,500 (£25,000-35,000.

London — Senate House Library, University of London, has digitized over 80,000 pages from over 300 rare Renaissance texts dated 1474-1600 and they are now available to view online (free to all registered university library users across the UK). This is just one of nine parts of the full Augustus De Morgan special collection of almost 3,800 books charting the development of mathematics, astronomy and philosophy from the 15th-19th century, featuring works by Euclid, Copernicus, Descartes and Newton.

Augustus De Morgan Special Collection - Part One is available to view online through Brill, one of Senate House Library’s commercial publishing partners. Part one of the collection comprises 316 texts with all titles dated pre-1600, including twenty-four Incunabula (pre-1500 printed texts). Senate House Library will continue to digitize the full Augustus De Morgan special collection over the next 3-4 years, to capture the remaining 3,500 texts dated 1600-1870.

Dr Maria Castrillo, Head of Special Collections and Engagement, Senate House Library, said: “It’s fantastic that we can now share the founding collection of Senate House Library with people across the globe, especially in times of restricted travel. The first part that has been digitized contains some beautifully illustrated extremely rare editions of the greatest works of the Renaissance, providing a unique blend of science and humanities that have advanced human knowledge over the last 500 years.”  

Highlights from the digitized collection now online include the first two printed editions (1482 and 1491) of The Elements, attributed to Greek mathematician Euclid and considered instrumental in the development of logic and modern science. Other key highlights include several incunabula such as Paolo Veneto's Logica Parva, the earliest work in the collection published in 1474; works by Nicolaus Copernicus, and Gregor Reisch's beautifully illustrated Margarita Philosophica, a popular encyclopaedic work in the early 16th century.

The Collection assembled by British mathematician and historian Augustus De Morgan throughout his life, contains a wealth of titles, mainly in English, charting the development of Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, Philosophy & Theology, and Literature. The scope of the collection and De Morgan's own annotations to some of the books, make this special collection particularly unique and distinctive.

New York — Swann Galleries offered four sales of Fine Art this June, each one proving audiences are undeterred by the remote bidding format due to social distancing guidelines.

African-American Fine Art was held on Thursday, June 4, with the auction surpassing its pre-sale high estimate totaling $3.5 million. The top lot in the sale was Richmond Barthé’s cast bronze sculpture Feral Benga, which earned a record for the artist at $629,000. The work, which was modeled in 1935 and cast in 1986, represents the culmination of Barthé’s study of the figure in sculpture, anatomy and dance in the 1930s, and his pioneering realization of an ideal male nude. Further notables included works by Ernie Barnes, Betty Blayton, LaToya Ruby Frazier and David Hammons.

After a decades-long career at Swann, Daile Kaplan held her final auction with the house Thursday, June 11 with a sale of Fine Photographs as she steps down as the department director and Swann vice president. Highlights from the sale included Michael Halsband’s striking portrait of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, shot for their joint show at Tony Shafrazi Gallery in 1985. The portrait led the sale at $27,500. Classics of photography by Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Andre Kertesz and Henri Cartier-Bresson drew intense bidding from the various online platforms, along with New York images by favorites Berenice Abbott and Helen Levitt. Fine art photographs by pioneers of contemporary photography, among them Lucas Samaras and Diane Arbus, realized strong prices. Deborah Rogal will be stepping into the role of director, after working alongside Kaplan since 2006, and serving as the department’s associate director since 2014.

The Thursday, June 18 sale of Graphic Design / Modernist Posters marked the house’s twentieth anniversary of offerings in the category and brought in $904,710, a record for the category at Swann. The auction garnered 10 records, including artist records for Charles Loupot with CH. Philippossian Automobiles / Genève, 1920, at $137,000, and Ladislav Sutnar with Vystava Moderniho Obchodu, 1929, at $16,250. Also of note was Wladyslaw Strzeminski’s circa-1928 gouache and pencil letterform study, which earned $60,000, and a propaganda poster issued by Kroger: Dear God, Keep Them Safe! / Buy War Bonds and Stamps, 1942, which brought $22,500.

Swann’s June offerings of fine art concluded with a standout sale of Contemporary Art on Thursday, June 25. The auction garnered $1.5 million, and saw an 85% sell-through rate by lot. Roy Lichtenstein’s Reverie, 1965—one of the artist’s first pop screenprints—led the auction at $75,000. Each of the acrylic works by street artist Richard Hambleton found buyers: Rodeo, 2003, at $50,000; Shadow Head, 2007, at $18,750; and Shadowman, 1994 at $12,500. Additional highlights included abstract works by Helen Frankenthaler, Agnes Martin and Julie Mehretu.

Swann Galleries is currently accepting consignments for the fall 2020 season. For the house’s most up-to-date auction schedule please visit swanngalleries.com.

Additional highlights can be found here:

African-American Fine Art

Fine Photographs

Graphic Design / Modernist Posters

Contemporary Art