The Rosemary Verey Collection Sells for $187,500 at Bloomsbury Auctions
London—The working library of one of the most distinguished and influential garden designers of the 20th Century, the late Rosemary Verey (1918-2001), sold for £120,000 ($187,500) at auction in London, doubling the pre-sale estimate. The stunning 84 lot strong collection contained the gardening and horticultural books that drove her creative process, many of which carried her personal annotations. The sale was held at Bloomsbury Auctions on Wednesday 17th December 2014.
Auction Highlights
Stephen Blake
The Compleate Gardeners Practice, 1664
Rare at auction. The work included The True Lovers’ Knot, one of the two used by Rosemary Verey for her knot-garden at Barnsley House.
Sold for £8,928 [Lot 11]
Richard Gardiner
Profitable Instructions for the Manurring, Sowing and Planting of Kitchen Gardens, 1603
Rare second edition of the first gardening book devoted entirely to vegetable growing to be published in England.
Sold for £8,060 [Lot 36]
John Gerard
The Herball or Generall historie of Plantes, 1597
Sold for £6,820 [Lot 42]
Robert Furber and others
The Flower-Garden Display’d, 1734
Sold for £3,720 [Lot 35]
William Turner
A New Herball, 1551
First edition of the first essay on scientific botany in England. Turner was the first English botanist to follow in the steps of contemporary Continental botanists who pursued the work of classification and published initiated by Brunfels and Fuchs.
Sold for £3,472 [Lot 41]
