Georges Rouault, ‘Cirque de l’etoile filante,’ estimated at $15,000-$25,000. Image courtesy of Doyle and LiveAuctioneers
NEW YORK – Doyle will hold an auction of Rare Books, Autographs & Maps on Thursday, October 13 at 10 am Eastern time. The sale will showcase a wide variety of Americana, antiquarian books, first editions, maps and signed items in all fields. Absentee and Internet live bidding will be available through LiveAuctioneers.
Highlights of Americana will be led by the only known signatures of President John Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe from the night she famously sang Happy Birthday, Mr. President at Madison Square Garden. The signatures carry an estimate of $40,000-$60,000.
Other standouts include The Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, one of just 100 copies issued at Christmas 1942 and inscribed by President Roosevelt to his granddaughter Sara Delano Roosevelt Wilford, estimated at $15,000-$25,000; and a large-format print of NASA astronaut William Anders’ Earthrise, as photographed from the Apollo 8 command module on December 24, 1968. Its estimate is $4,000-$6,000.
The sale continues with a large collection of travel books on China, including a fine first edition set with the 1797 atlas of George Thomas Staunton’s An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China, estimated at $3,000-$5,000. Also offered in the travel section is an exceptionally interesting album of cartes-des-visite (CDV) portraits of diplomats stationed in Japan in the early 1860s, interspersed with CDV images of Japanese life, which has an estimate of $1,500-$2,500.
In the science section, a collection of 26 titles illustrates Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and its reception in Europe, and includes the second edition of his landmark work On the Origin of Species, together estimated at $10,000-$12,000. Also, a very fine photographic portrait of Sigmund Freud, signed and dated by him on the mount, is on offer with an estimate of $8,000-$12,000.
Manuscripts are led by a very early example – a document signed by the French King Louis VII in 1177, again from the collection of Dr. Herbert Ernest Klingelhofer. Its estimate is $20,000-$30,000. In early printing, the very rare 1620 first complete English edition of Cervantes’ Don Quixote carries an estimate of $60,000-$90,000.
Fine Bindings includes many deluxe issue library sets, among them the extra-illustrated 60-volume Edition de Luxe of The Works of Charles Dickens, number 3 of just 10 specially-bound copies including original drawings by Kyd and a long letter in the first volume I, estimated at $7,000-$10,000; and the Autograph Edition of The Writings of Mark Twain, signed as both Twain and Clemens and with two manuscript leaves from The Gilded Age inserted, estimated at $7,000-$10,000. A finely-bound single volume of note is an 1899 printing of French Painters of the XVIIIth Century in full crimson crushed morocco by Riviere and Sons, the upper cover elaborately gilt to a design of leafy sprays with five inset hand-painted miniatures under glass of Madame de Pompadour, Marie Antoinette and others. This last has an estimate of $3,000-$5,000.
A remarkable literary offering is the original circa-1896 manuscript of Max Beerbohm’s The Happy Hypocrite, as published in The Yellow Book, a seminal work of the English 1890s and Beerbohm’s first published fiction. It is estimated at $8,000-$12,000. A signed limited edition of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake is offered with an estimate of $6,000-$9,000, as well as a first edition set of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book with the second volume in its scarce original dust jacket, together estimated at $10,000-$20,000. This section is concluded with a fine first edition set in dust jackets of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classics of Middle-earth, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, estimated at $12,000-$18,000.
Original art and Livres d’Artistes rounds out the sale with a fine selection, including a fine original sketch by Ludwig Bemelmans of his most famous character, Madeline, which is estimated at $4,000-$6,000. In addition, an important archive of letters from painter Philip Guston describes his new paintings and offers an invitation to the 1970 Marlborough Gallery exhibition that changed his career. Its estimate is $20,000-$30,000.
Archive of notes and drawings from artist Andrew Wyeth to neighbors in Chadds Ford, estimated at $5,000-$10,000. Image courtesy of Doyle and LiveAuctioneers
Georges Rouault’s Cirque de l’etoile filante is considered one of the finest of the artist books of all time for its 17 aquatint plates; a copy is included in the October 13 sale with an estimate of $15,000-$25,000. The final lot is devoted to a charming archive of illustrated notes and drawings from Andrew Wyeth to Chadds Ford neighbors on whose grounds he frequently sketched. It has an estimate of $5,000-$10,000.
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