Rare Books, Autographs & Maps

• Auction of Rare Books, Autographs & Maps on Friday, April 11, 2025 at 10am

• Consignments Are Currently Being Accepted

• We Invite You to Contact Us for a Complimentary Auction Evaluation of Your Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
  
  

NEW YORK, NY -- Doyle will present an auction of Rare Books, Autographs & Maps on Friday, April 11, 2025 at 10am. The sale includes an extensive collection of illustrated books and fine bindings, many from a private collection purchased at auction in the 1970s and off the market until the present time. Here are copies of the first edition of Nerciat’s erotic classic Le Diable au Corps, and an early and curiously illustrated edition of the exceedingly naughty Academie des Dames. From the same collection comes a splendid Levitzky binding with batik endpapers on a work illustrated by Georges Barbier, with an original watercolor by the master. Many finely bound sets are featured in the sale, most notably an exceptionally luxurious set of Charles Dickens, one of 15 copies bound in sixty volumes, in superb red levant morocco with onlays.

As usual, the sale includes a selection of interesting maps and atlases, such as a copy of Turgot’s 1734 bird’s eye plan of Paris, and a finely colored celestial map by Andreas Cellarius. Additionally, there is a sizable group of globes and instruments in the auction, including a pair of 15-inch library globes and a 20-inch celestial globe by Cary, as well as three English pocket globes, a “dissected” paper globe, and a collection of rare pocket navigational instruments and sundials, including an exquisite 17th century silver “Butterfield” type sundial by the Parisian instrument maker Pierre Sevin.”

One lot that bears special note is the Latin grammar owned by the young Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, used by him while studying for his baccalaureate examination. In this, the artist has penned hundreds of tiny ink sketches, ranging from studies of horses to caricatured faces. Toulouse-Lautrec was 16 to 17 years old at the time, and his genius was just starting to declare itself, evident in the precocious studies of horses in this work, which make the annotations far more compelling than mere juvenalia.

Also, in the auction are selections of Americana, travels and voyages, and a wide range of early printing. In this last category, a complete copy of Graevius’s great 1722 work on Venice is offered, the Splendor Magnificentissimae Urbis Venetiarum Clarissimus with the two large folding plates of the city and all the double-page views of piazzas and palazzos.

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Consignments are currently being accepted. We invite you to contact us for complimentary auction estimates. Our Specialists are always available to discuss the sale of a single item or an entire collection.

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