Freeman | Hindman June Sales Results
On June 6 in Chicago, Freeman’s | Hindman presented Fine Literature from the Collection of Richard C. McKenzie, which was met with tremendous enthusiasm from the market. Bidders vied for first editions and literary high spots of the 19th and 20th centuries with all 297 lots selling, of which nearly 60% sold for prices surpassing presale estimates. The collection drew international bidders, nearly 30% of whom were bidding with Freeman’s | Hindman for the very first time.
The collection included fine copies of high spots of American and English literature from the last two centuries with works by Jane Austen (1775-1817), Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), William Faulkner (1897-1962), F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1944), and Herman Melville (1819-1891) headlining the sale.
Highlights from the collection included: Emily Dickinson. Poems, Poems Second Series, and Poems Third Series. First editions, which
sold for $22,860; Herman Melville. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. First American Edition, selling for $22,860; and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Beautiful and Damned. First edition, first printing, which brought $16,510.
The top lot of the month came from the June 25 Books and Manuscripts auction in Philadelphia, where a rare portolan chart of the Mediterranean by Joan Oliva sold for $152,400, more than seven times the presale estimate. Oliva was the most prolific and highly regarded member of the distinguished Oliva family, a mapmaking dynasty that dominated chart-making production in Europe in the 16th to the mid-17th centuries. The chart offered in the auction was one of only four extant works from Oliva’s short chart-making period in Marseille, and the only one from this period still in private hands.
Other highlights from the auction included John Keats's copy of Edmund Spenser's Collected Works, 1818, which sold for $60,325;
(Bowdich, Sarah) The Fresh-Water Fishes of Great Britain. Drawn and Described by Mrs. T. Edward Bowdich. First edition,
fetched $47,625; Gabriel Thomas's An Historical and Geographical Account of the Province and Country of Pensilvania; and of West-New-Jersey in America. First edition brought $31,750.
Not surprisingly, early photography ruled the day in the American Historical Ephemera and Photography spring sale, with an image of San Francisco at the height of the gold rush topping the auction selling for $66,675. The whole plate daguerreotype captured the southeast corner of Front and Sacramento Streets either in 1852 or 1853. Images from this era of San Francisco are rare, especially of this quality, and bidders were clearly eager to own this piece of San Francisco history.
Other highlights from the sale included the Charleston Mercury Extra:...The Union is Dissolved! (December 20, 1860) which sold for $22,860 and An Ordinance. To dissolve the Union between the State of South Carolina and other States... Ca. (September 20, 1860) which brought $19,050.
On June 7, the Chicago Fine Books & Manuscripts auction kicked off with a session dubbed Worlds of Tomorrow. The session explored the relationship between the scientific and technological advancements of the 20th century and the literature and film that developed in response to those rapid advances. The collection featured historic photographs, artifacts and manuscripts offered alongside works of literature, film props, posters, and literary archives. Altogether, the collection netted $176,530, led by a Martian War Machine prop from the 1953 classic film War of the Worlds, which sold for $34,925.
Other highlights from the Chicago sale included: Zora Neale Hurston. Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937. First Edition in the rare dust jacket which sold for $38,100; Homann Heirs, and Georg Matthäus Seutter. Composite Atlas, 1728-1765 which also old for $38,100. Robert John Thornton. New Illustration of the Sexual System of Carolus Von Linnaeus... And the Temple of Flora [1799-] 1807-[1812] sold for $34,925
On June 27, Freeman’s | Hindman hosted its inaugural Western Manuscripts and Miniatures auction. The sale also included glossed Bibles, theological treatises, legal texts, Psalters, Missals, and Breviaries. The top lot was a collection of John Keats poems which were beautifully illuminated by 19th century illustrator and calligrapher Alberto Sangorski and bound in a superb jeweled binding signed by Riviere & Sons. The manuscript sold for $76,200, surpassing the presale estimate. Other highlights included: Master of Raoul Du Fou and Jean Serpin (Both Active Rouen, C. 1480-1520). Book of Hours, Use of Rouen, in Latin and French, Illuminated Manuscript on Parchment which sold for $47,625 and The Decretals of Gregory IX, Books I-III. Illuminated Manuscript on Parchment, France, ca 1250-1275 which brought $28,575.
