Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Auction Report: Sotheby's

Sotheby's London had a Continental and Russian Books and Manuscripts sale today. Some highlights:

- A near-complete set of Piranesi's prints of Rome (1761-1778) fetched 127,250 GBP, much higher than the pre-sale estimates of 35,000-45,000 GBP.

- A German manuscript magic book (eighteenth century) containing "incantations, conjurations, spells, remedies and charms, in apparently several hands, in brown ink, including magical diagrams, the Sator word square, esoteric and Christian symbols, signs of the zodiac, planetary signs, Judeo-Christian terminology ('JesAtonay...Tetragramatonxinri'), with some entries in pencil" made 3,750 GBP.

- The first complete edition copy of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin (1833) sold for 42,050 GBP, better than doubling its estimates.