London — Peter Harrington, the UK’s largest rare bookseller, this year celebrates its 50th anniversary, and is attending Frieze Masters for the second time, this October. This year its collection focuses on ‘Drawing a Line’.
First a rescheduling note: Skinner's sale of A Mystic Collection: Early Books, originally planned for July 20, has been moved to Tuesday, July 23. See last week's post for expected highlights. The photo above shows a 1610 Missale Romanum published at Antwerp and bound in red velvet with an embroidered design ($500–700).
This week isn't quite as jam-packed as the last couple have been, but here's what I'll be watching:
A busy week coming up in the auction rooms: here's what I'm keeping an eye on:
A much quieter auction week coming up:
Facebook is hardly good for anything anymore, but one of its finer applications is allowing a global audience of book lovers to share information and images in a handful of terrific rare book-related groups.
ALDE will sell 224 lots from the library of Jacques Attali on Tuesday, June 25. Some excellent philosophical and literary editions to be had, including Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes (1913), estimated at €14,000–16,000, and Vercors' Le Silence de la mer (1942), estimated at €12,000–15,000.
The National Trust holds around 400,000 titles in their 160 historic properties in the UK. Rarities includes William Caxton’s 1487 Lyme Missal at Lyme Park in Cheshire and the first edition of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, given by the author to Eddy Sackville-West while he was living at Knole. The charity is also increasingly putting its finest items on display, and there are currently two excellent exhibitions at Peckover House and Blickling Estate.
New York – On June 12, the Christie’s New York Summa de Arithmetica: The Birth of Modern Business and the Spring Fine Books and Manuscripts Including Americana auctions achieved a total of $4,693,750. The dedicated single-lot sale for Luca Pacioli’s Summa de Arithmetica (1447-1517) realized $1,215,000 after two minutes of competitive bidding between the telephones and the room.
A brief overview of this week's auction offerings:
