AE Top 500 Auction Sales for 2006!
- By Michael Stillman
Death of the Strong Wicked Man, highest ranked of many Blake plates. Courtesy of Sotheby's.
By Michael Stillman
The time has arrived for the third annual listing of the AE Top 10 plus 490 (also known as the AE Top 500) results from book and related ephemera auctions for 2006. The past year proved the market remains healthy for books at the upper end, with seven items qualifying for millionaire status. At the top, we find an old and familiar name, and while nothing quite matched the high for 2005, $5.6 million for an Audubon Birds of America folio, 2006 did provide the second straight year with a $5 million book. A link to the complete AE 500 can be found after the Top 10 list. There is also an explanation of what type of material qualifies for this list at the end of the article.
First we start with a few items from the Top 500 that did not make the Top 10. In 1948, Albert Einstein answered in this signed manuscript as to whether scientists are morally responsible for the atomic bomb. "No," he responded. "The responsibility lies however with those who make use of the means, not with those who have brought these advances to light; therefore with the politicians, not with the scientists." #330. $83,904.
In 1779, George Washington wrote to George Clinton, "The state of the army in particular is alarming on several accounts, that of its numbers is not among the least." This list of problems his army faced seemed insurmountable at the time, but of course, Washington did prevail. #251. $102,000.
A first edition of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's (also known as "Lewis Carroll") Through the Looking-Glass would be a valuable book in any instance, but in 2006 the dedication copy he presented to the real "Alice," Alice Pleasance Liddell, was sold at auction. #242. $105,984. The first French edition of the original Alice book dedicated to "Alice" also was sold. #200. $121,440.
A signed letter from President-elect Abraham Lincoln to Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin also hit the market. Lincoln suggests the Governor make it clear that Pennsylvania will maintain the Union "at all hazards." #188. $131,450.
A most interesting item is A Catalogue of the Different Specimens of Cloth Collected in the Three Voyages of Captain Cook to the Southern Hemisphere. This book contains 39 actual pieces of cloth collected on Captain Cook's three voyages. #158. $144,000.
A most remarkable letter from Catherine of Aragon, the first of Henry VIII's six wives, went on the block. Henry overruled the Catholic Church and set up the Church of England, all so he could divorce her. That he did, and by the time Catherine wrote this letter to her nephew, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1534, she had been exiled to a low-rent castle. She still called herself queen, but Henry now applied that appellation to Anne Boleyn. #144. $156,000.
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AE Top 500 Auction Sales for 2006!
- By Michael Stillman
Handwritten letter from Catherine of Aragon, first of Henry VIII's six wives. Courtesy of Sotheby's.
For something a bit more modern, there were handwritten lyrics for Maxwell's Silver Hammer by Paul McCartney. Item 102. $192,000. However, Igor Stravinsky did even better than Sir Paul with an autographed working manuscript for The Nightingale. Item 13. $694,784.
While many great figures made multiple appearances in the Top 500, this must be called the year of William Blake. The controversial auction of his drawings for the 1808 edition of The Grave as single items, rather than as a collection, has been called a travesty and worse, but it did result in a commanding performance in the Top 500. Eleven Blake drawings made the list, all within the top 51. Despite this, many experts thought the Blake prices were disappointing.
Before getting to the Top 10, we have to mention one more runner-up. It is a personal manuscript by author Pierre Louys, illustrated with photographs, detailing the women with which he slept between the ages of 18 and 22. There were 29 photographs in all. #212. $115,870. Now for the Top 10.
10. One of the many Blakes, this one the design for the title page of The Grave. $744,000.
9. A Mercator atlas published in 1595, once owned by a 16th century Venetian ambassador to Paris. $777,216.
8. Another Blake illustration, The Grave Personified. $912,000.
7. We climb over the $1 million mark with yet another Blake, The Reunion of the Body and Soul. This body and soul cost an arm and a leg. $1,024,000.
6. An autographed manuscript copy of Ireland's National Anthem, A Soldier's Song, by Peadar O'Cearnaigh. $1,124,587.
5. Forty leaves of a Parisian illuminated manuscript on vellum from 1425-1435 of the Hours of the Cross. $1,168,768.
4. The fourth and final Top 10 appearance for Blake, Death of the Strong Wicked Man. $1,584,000.
3. A lengthy illuminated manuscript "Book of Friendship" from 1596-1633 created by Philipp Hainhofer, an influential cloth merchant from Augsburg who recorded signatures from various princes he met as he traveled on commercial and diplomatic missions throughout Europe. $2,368,000.
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AE Top 500 Auction Sales for 2006!
- By Michael Stillman
Shakespeare's first folio, #1 on the AE 500 for 2006. Courtesy of Sotheby's.
2. One of only 31 known copies, just two in private hands, of the first atlas, a 1477 printing of Ptolemy's Cosmographia, with 26 hand-colored maps, printed by Dominicus de Lapis in Bologne. $3,930,240.
1. What could be more suitable for number one than the greatest piece of English literature ever published, more collectible than any book except the Gutenberg Bible? This is the legendary 1623 first folio edition of William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. Eighteen of the 36 plays in this book would have been lost forever were it not for this printing put together by a few of Shakespeare's friends after his death. Among the plays which would otherwise have been lost are Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Henry VIII, All's Well That Ends Well, The Taming of the Shrew, Antony and Cleopatra, and Twelfth Night. This copy was obtained by Dr. Daniel Williams in the 17th century, and had resided in the library he formed since 1729. $5,166,720.
You may find the entire AE Top 500 at http://www.americanaexchange.com/newae/auction/stats/2006/2006aetop500.asp.
Footnote: What qualifies for a list of books and book-related ephemera? You might think this is easy to answer. It is not. Not even what constitutes a book is always obvious. Are loose portfolios of sheets, perhaps issued serially, maybe all at once, perhaps intended to be bound together, maybe optional, a book? The aforementioned Audubon folio was shipped out in separate sheets, for the purchaser to bind together (or not) himself. Was that a book? We think so. So how about a collection of prints from an artist, or a group of photographs? Is this a book?
The problem here is that if you start counting prints as related ephemera, the list quickly becomes dominated by "authors" such as Picasso and Rembrandt, or photographers Steiglitz and even Mapplethorpe. Shakespeare and Twain aren't even in the same league with Warhol. This isn't right. And yet, this was the year when the long-lost Blake artwork, intended for the 1808 edition of The Grave, was rediscovered after over a century and a half in hiding. While a Blake drawing may appear similar to one by Andy Warhol, we consider the former a piece of book-related ephemera, the latter not.
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AE Top 500 Auction Sales for 2006!
- By Michael Stillman
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The same issue can arise with photography. Is an album of 19th century photography, perhaps depicting battles from the Civil War or other historic events, related photography? We tend to think so. How about an 1854 daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe? Again, we will say yes. So how about the Steiglitz photographs of Georgia O'Keeffe, many of which sold for enough to qualify for the list? Two of these (her hands and torso) sold for over a million dollars each. I can't imagine what her whole body would have brought. Is this related to books? Not in our book. Or, here is my favorite: Love, a 1993 photographic work of "art" by Adam Fuss, described as thus: "The majority of photograms from this series depict the entrails of rabbits dynamically arranged on light sensitive paper, resulting in an almost abstract expressionist image." Don't laugh. This brought in $90,000. And you thought book collectors were irrational! In a world where O'Keeffe's hands bring in ten times as much as Poe's portrait, it is evident that we need to sift out the "art" from the books, or the list will be dominated by the absurd prices people pay for this stuff.
So here is what you will find in the AE Top 500. Books, manuscripts, signed documents by writers or historical figures, artwork used or intended for use as illustrations in books or somehow related to authors, and photographs depicting either writers or historic events. Left out is material generally thought of as "art," unless it is clearly in book form. Therefore, a book primarily of art, but with an artist's biography, or perhaps a few poems, qualifies. A group of artistic prints or photographs does not.
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