Sotheby's London held the twelfth sale of books from the Earl of Macclesfield's library this morning. This sale, Continental Books and Manuscripts, consisted of 532 lots, and the total realized was a very respectable 1,851,672 GBP. The results list is here.
The big kahunas from this sale were:
- A first edition of Robert Gaguin's Les Grandes Chroniques (1514), printed on vellum with fourteen illuminated woodcut illustrations. This copy, one of three known on vellum, was from the collection of Nicolas-Joseph Foucault. It sold for 109,250 GBP.
- The first issue of Aldus' edition of Theocritus (1495/6) in a c. 1570 amazingly ornate French binding, from the Laubespine-Villeroy Library. This was estimated at 30,000-40,000 GBP, but it made a whopping 163,250 GBP.
