Swann

Expert in astronomy and history of science amassed an impressive private collection of related works

The Rare & Important Travel Posters sale at Swann Galleries (32/27/17% buyer’s premium) of New York on November 25 included a classic view of Piccadilly Circus, located across the Atlantic in London.

Four complete catalogues for the ground-breaking 1913 Armory Show, bound into a single volume, hammered for $7000 (£5315) against a guide of $10,000-15,000 at Swann (27% buyer’s premium) on October 23 in New York City.

A hand-coloured engraving of an Anglo- American naval battle in 1779 hammered for $5200 against a $1000-1500 guide at Swann Auction Galleries (25% buyer’s premium) in New York City.

Rolling to top lot honours in New York at Swann Auction Galleries (25% buyer’s premium) was a 1929 poster for the long defunct automotive brand Pierce-Arrow.

Swann Auction Galleries (25% buyer’s premium) recorded head-turning sales during its series of New York sales in May.

Classic Art Deco designs from a prime period for collectors capture the spirit and style of the period

A recent Vintage Posters sale at Swann Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium), a summer staple of the New York auction house, was dominated by three large early 20th century magic posters, each hammering for $22,000 (£16,650).

First edition of key Mormon work lists Joseph Smith as ‘author and proprietor’ of text not ‘translator’

Not only is this 1960 first edition of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' inscribed by Harper Lee to her friend Harold Caufield, but it was sold with a Christmas card from the author penned with a lengthy message.

Extensive collection on tennis theme inlcudes early Wimbledon designs and Broders view of Monte Carlo

When James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) arrived in Paris in 1855 determined to pursue a career as an artist, printmaking was experiencing a revival.

Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) arrived on the Amalfi Coast in 1923 and ultimately created more than 100 works there based on the landscape.

Swann Auction Galleries’ (30% buyer’s premium) summer vintage poster sale in New York on August 3 received a significant boost from a single consignment.

The SS Normandie was both the apogee and the nadir of the Art Deco movement.

Early English plays provided the principal attraction in a US saleroom

The Negro Motorist Green Book, first produced in 1936, was the indispensable guide for African-American families travelling.

Complete with the often missing dust jacket and entirely unrestored, as the cataloguer’s notes were pleased to point out, a 1925 Hogarth Press first of Virginia Woolf’s famous novel Mrs Dalloway was offered as part of a March 2 sale at Swann Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) of New York.

The October 13 sale of Early Printed Books at Swann Auction Galleries in New York will feature part two of the library of Ken Rapoport: English literature, tales of chivalry from the Renaissance, and more Shakespeare, Chaucer, Cervantes, Donne, and others.