Results from Swann’s Early Printed, Medical & Scientific Books
New York—Swann Galleries auction of Early Printed, Medical & Scientific Books on October 17 featured religious texts, classics, law books, works on anesthesia & general medicine, as well as a selection of books of Iberian interest.
The top lot, a volume of polyphonic masses by Cristóbal de Morales entitled Missarum liber primus, brought $33,600*. It was the first time this book, a second edition of the first of two volumes, printed in Lyon in 1546, had been offered at auction.
Another auction first was an edition of the Biblia sacra, a Latin bible printed in Salmanca, 1555. This first attempt to publish the Vatable Bible in Spain was suppressed by the Inquisition, and the book, which sold for $28,800, is one of only four known copies.
Other early printed highlights included Jacobus Philippus de Bergamo’s world chronicle, Supplementum chronicarum, Venice, 1490, $10,800; The Byble, edited by John Rogers under the pseudonym Thomas Matthew, London, 1549, $8,400; Officium beatissime virginis Marie con li officij ordinati de ciaschun tempo, Venice, circa 1525, a volume of prayers to the Virgin in a contemporary Venetian binding, $10,800; John Milton, Paradise Lost…Second Edition, London, 1674, $5,520; and Engelbert Kaempfer, The History of Japan, second edition, two volumes, London, 1728, $8,400.
A run of illuminated manuscript leaves offered 14th-century vellum leaves from an illuminated Latin antiphonary with historiated initials, which brought up to $5,520 each; and a painting by the so-called Spanish Forger on a portion of 15th-century vellum choir-book leaf, late 19th-early 20th century, $6,000.
There was a large offering of medical & scientific books in the sale as well, including works by Sigmund Freud, Marie Curie, and Benjamin Franklin. Franklin’s Some Account of the Success of Inoculation for the Small-Pox in England and America, with contributions by William Heberden, set an auction record, bringing $15,600.
Also noteworthy were The Grete Herball, a fragment of the first edition of the first illustrated English herbal, Southwarke, 1526, $4,560; Claudius Galenus, Omnia opera, 9 (of 10) volumes in 5, the first edition to include contributions by Andreas Vesalius, Venice, 1541-42, $5,040; as well as Vesalius’s Opera omnia anatomica & chirurgica, two volumes, the only collected edition, Leiden, 1725, $5,520.
*All prices include buyer’s premium.
