Books and Works on Paper

Possibly the first autograph manuscript of a complete work by Bela Bartok ever seen at auction, a working manuscript for the complete score of the original version of his Second Rhapsody for Violin and Piano (BB96) was bid to £250,000 in a music sale held by Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium).

Used as the catalogue cover design for an Illustration Art sale held by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) of New York was the George Lepape watercolour, ‘Après la Tempeste’ shown below.

A fine Pushkin collection, running to a dozen lots in all, was a major attraction in the Russian section of at a Christie’s (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale.

Illustrated here are two of the 20 hand-coloured litho plates, many showing the Crystal Palace in the background and each with a rhyming couplet below, that make up Blondin’s Marvellous Feats.

Two letters sent by passengers who lost their lives when the Titanic sank in 1912 came to auction in the latter part of 2017: one of them posted before she sailed, the other recovered, along with the owner’s pocket book, when his body was pulled from the freezing Atlantic waters.

Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the Holy Places…, an elephant folio work of 1865 that sold for a treble-estimate £45,000 at Sotheby’s (25/20/12.9% buyer’s premium) on November 14, was a rare and complete proof copy of a monumental book of Palestinian views recognised as one of the scarcer colour-plate books on the Middle East.

A remarkable group of 14 works by HG Wells – every one of them sporting a dust jacket – sold at strong and very often record sums in the book section of a December 15 sale held by Cuttlestones (17.5% buyer’s premium).

A tin of Horlick’s was one of the odder and cheaper lots in the $3m sale of material from the Martin Greene library on ‘Russian America and Polar Exploration’ held by Christie’s New York (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on December 7.

While the end of last year was chock-full of auctions, this winter has been even busier.

The night, just three months before her death, that Marilyn Monroe sang ‘Happy Birthday’ in sultry tones at a Democratic Party fundraiser celebrating John F Kennedy’s 45th birthday caused quite a sensation.

A fascinating archive of manuscripts, ephemera and artefacts relating to the life and career of the great actor, playwright and theatrical manager David Garrick sold for a far higher than predicted £90,000 at Bonhams (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) on November 15.

‘Stage Coach Passengers passing Woburn Sands’ is one of 100 coloured engraved caricatures after Isaac Cruikshank that illustrate GM Woodward’s Eccentric Excursions or Literary and Pictorial Sketches in England and South Wales, interspersed with Curious Anecdotes of 1807.

A copy of the first published work of the Brontë sisters sold for a record sum at Sotheby’s (25/20/12/5% buyer’s premium) on November 7, just a few months after a new high had been set at another London auction.

Record bids greeted a couple of works by the renowned and influential science-fiction writer Philip K Dick in a November 14 sale held by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium).

Employing a translation made in the 16th century by William Adlington, the 1924 Ashendene edition of The Golden Asse of Lucius Apuleius was printed in the press’ proprietary Subiaco type in an edition of just 124 copies, of which 16 were printed on vellum but only 13 offered for sale.

A Great Blue Heron as seen by John James Audubon proved the unexpected avian star in a $3m-plus sale featuring mostly natural history prints, maps and atlases held by US saleroom Graham Arader (22% buyer’s premium) on October 28.

An extraordinary family archive of engineering and architectural drawings and designs for the projects of Marc Isambard Brunel (1769-1849), offered in 14 lots, sold for a total of £224,500 in a Bonhams (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium) sale of November 15.

Described as the ‘Proustian Holy Grail’ by Sotheby’s Paris (25/20/12.5% buyer’s premium), one of just five special copies printed on Japanese paper of Marcel Proust’s Du côté de chez Swann sold for a premium-inclusive €535,000 (£471,780) in a sale of October 30.

An exceptionally rare, complete copy in a 17th century binding of Hernán Cortés’ Praeclara Nova maris Oceanii Hyspania… of 1524 sold for a six-times estimate €240,000 (£212,390) at Hartung & Hartung (20% buyer’s premium) in its November 6-7 auction.

British bee books formed an unusual feature of a November 8 sale held by Dominic Winter (19.5% buyer’s premium).