Pliny the Elder’s Natural History to Auction with $1.2m Estimate

Sotheby’s will present the first selection from the important private collection of Barry Yampol today which is led by an edition of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History with an estimate of $900,000-$1,200,000.
 
While Yampol (1937–2023) was known worldwide as a leading collector and dealer of minerals, and supporter of institutions such as the Smithsonian and the Sorbonne, he was also a discerning bibliophile, quietly assembling a library spanning mineralogy, mining, and the broader history of science. 

The December auction is split into a live sale today and an online sale closing on December 12. It also features major works by Agricola, Albertus Magnus, Gautier d’Agoty, Kircher, Sowerby, and William Smith, alongside rarities such as the Doheny copy of Aristotle's Opera (Aldus, 1495–1498) (estimate $400,000-$600,000), and an extremely rare first edition of Mendeleev’s Principles of Chemistry (1869–1871) ($50,000-$70,000) which includes the earliest printed version of the periodic table, produced from the same setting type used for the first single-sheet tables circulated among his colleagues for and his 1869 journal article.

Among the rare works in the Yampol collection is William Smith’s Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales, with Part of Scotland (London, 1815), the first large-scale geological map of any country (estimate: $40,000-$60,000). Surveying England and Wales over nearly 15 years, Smith produced a staggering atlas covering 65,000 square miles in breathtaking detail, hand-coloured to show 21 sedimentary layers, massive granite formations, as well as collieries, mines and industrial works. With fewer than 100 known to exist today, the map’s revolutionary method not only transformed modern geology, but laid the foundations for a field of study which culminated in the work of Charles Darwin.

In addition to the Barry Yampol collection will be the Fine Books & Manuscripts, Including Americana saloe at the heart of which are works by Jane Austen including a first edition of Sense and Sensibility (estimate: $60,000-$80,000) as well as a first edition of Emma (estimate: $30,000-$50,000). There is also a posthumous four-volume first edition of Northangar Abbey & Persuasion (estimate: $30,000-$50,000), the first set to bear her name, accompanied by the earliest biography of the author.

Beyond Austen, the sale features an inscribed copy of This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (estimate: $10,000-$15,000) titled “Now you just go right to sleep,” addressed to his nurse.
 
There is also a first edition of Death in the Afternoon from 1932 (estimate: $8,000-$12,000) inscribed by Ernest Hemingway warmly inscribed to Eleanore Havre, reportedly a former roommate of Hemingway’s second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer “remembering aperitifs and a confused itinerary set forth at the Deux Magots.” The inscription refers to the famous café in Paris Les Deux Magots, one of the central gathering places for the expatriate writers and artists of the 1920s which would go on to feature heavily in Hemingway’s later memoir A Moveable Feast.