The sale of books from Kenneth Nebenzahl's library at Christie's New York yesterday realized a total of $11,663,937, with four books surpassing $1 million and two coming close to $3 million!
That, complete subscriber's copy of Edward S. Curtis' The North American Indian (1907-1930) was, as expected, the top lot, but it blew past the presale estimates and sold for $2,882,500. Battista Agnese's portolan atlas (~1542-6) fetched $2,770,500.
Christoforo Buondelmonti's Liber insularum Archipelagi ended up at $1,762,500, and a 1592 Antonio Lafreri atlas was hammered down at $1,082,500.
A copy of James Rosier's A True relation of the most prosperous voyage made this present yeere 1605, by Captaine George Weymouth, in the Discovery of the land of Virginia (1605) better than doubled its own estimate and sold for $554,500.
Thomas Morton's New England Canaan found a buyer at $50,000 and New Englands Memoriall sold for $68,500. Sir Thomas Phillipps' personal seal sold for $18,750.
