International

A superb example of “the quintessential Italian Renaissance book”, a 1545 first of the first Italian translation of Thucydides in a fine Apollo & Pegasus binding made for the famous library of G.B. Grimaldi – a collection of some 200 key works formed under the supervision of the Roman humanist Tolomei. It sold for $140,000 (£96,550).

The former Honeyman copy of the Probier Buchlein... and Bergwerk..., two rare booklets on assaying dated 1524 and ’33 (the latter with two leaves in photocopy) produced one of the shock results of Haskell F. Norman sale in 1998 when it made $80,000 – 20 times the estimate.

A spread from a 1491 first edition of the most comprehensive and richly illustrated medical or natural history publication of the 15th century, the Hortus sanitatis.

Interleaved throughout with blank leaves, 19 of which bear the author’s annotations, this is Jean Baptiste Lamarck’s own copy of his landmark work on the evolution of species, an 1801 first of Systême des animaux sans vertèbres, ou tableau général des classes, des ordres et des genre de ces animaux in a contemporary binding.

The principal focus of the Christie’s Los Angeles sale of February 22 was a collection of Pacific voyages, with particular emphasis on New Zealand, and I shall return to that sale next week (see issue no. 1483) – but there were a few other things as well.

EIRE: BACK in May last year works by Dublin-born Louis le Brocquy (b.1916) entered the same price bracket as that of his compatriots like Yeats and Lavery when Sotheby’s took a record £1,050,000 (plus buyer’s premium) in London for his work entitled Travelling woman with newspaper.

Buyers who brave harsh winter weather warm to finer furniture UK: THE name of Henry Bone RA (1755-1834) which featured in London's first sale of portrait miniatures this year, was also a feature of the wider ranging sale held by James Adam in Dublin on February 28.

A 1690 first of Locke’s Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, bound in contemporary English mottled calf gilt and formerly in Sir Isaac Newton’s library, that reached $190,000 (£131,035) was acquired by Freilich at the Haskell F. Norman sales of 1998, when the price was $200,000.

US: WILLIAM Faulkner’s books have been selling very well in recent times, and a January 25 sale held by Pacific Auction Galleries saw bids of $1300 (£895) for a first trade edition of The Hamlet, 1940, in a very bright jacket, and $2500 (£1725) for a copy of one of his earlier works, Mosquitoes of 1927, again in a jacket. However, while modern firsts overall certainly did well at this sale, the day’s top lot was a 19th century manuscript of American historical interest.

Four lots from a service once owned by the Duke of Orléans were among the more unusual offerings among the stash of 18th century Tournai porcelain presented by Beaussant-Lefèvre at Drouot on March 7.

One of 194 full-page engraved plates from a 1588 first of Ramelli’s Le Diverse et artificiose machine..., a study of the science and technology of machines in the Renaissance and one of the more famous illustrated books of the 16th century.

Pictured here is the title page of one of the more important publications in the history of science – Carolus Linnaeus’ Systema naturae... of 1735, which laid the groundwork for the systematic classification of plants and animals.

Sold at $75,000 (£51,725), at the Freilich sale which took place at Sotheby’s New York on January 10 and 11, was a superb copy of the first complete lunar atlas, Hevelius’ Selenographia... of 1647.

US: THE FIRST sale of 2001 at the San Francisco rooms of Pacific Book Auction Galleries – who recently announced that they had acquired significant additional private funding with the aim of extending their marketing and professional services – took place on January 18 and offered one man’s angling library.

US: BOUND in late 17th century French red morocco gilt, this is the five-volume Aldine editio princeps of the works of Aristotle, the 1497-98 first edition in Greek and, in the amount of research and editing that went into its creation, let alone the fine typography, the greatest printing project of the 15th century.

EIRE: WHYTES of Dublin held their spring coin sale on February 23. Their regular sale results are very useful for gauging the market in Irish material and with the enhancement of the Irish economy in recent years there is much interest in it. This is made manifest by the fact that most of the buyers reported by Whytes are resident in Ireland.

A highly unusual set of five life-size canvases of Javanese princes and courtiers, attracted a deluge of international trade enquiries when they came up for sale at the Copenhagen rooms of Museumsbygningen (25% buyer’s premium) on March 1.

FRANCE: THE largest hoard ever of gold Celtic coins – the French call them Gauloise – is being offered at auction in Paris on March 27. The expert is Alain Weil (54 rue de Richelieu). There are 145 of them and they were issued by the Gaulish tribes of the Cenomanes, who bequeathed their name to present-day le Mans, and the Venetes who dominated the area round Vannes on the south coast of Brittany.

TEFAF Maastricht closed on Sunday with museum-quality goods having sold well – particularly Old Masters, Contemporary art and Oriental – but business was being achieved from the opening party on March 9, when collectors converged on this showstopping pottery model of a recumbent Bactrian camel, 101/2in (27cm) high, on the stand of London specialist Ben Janssens.

A MAJOR cataloguing project at the Museum of Cincinnati in Ohio has authenticated up to 15 very important and hitherto unrecorded portrait miniatures by the likes of Nicholas Hilliard.