A brief review of yesterday’s exciting first day of auctions in Königstein. Hundreds of live bidders around the world, floor bidders, written bidders and numerous international telephone bidders made yesterday an exciting and extremely successful day for the staff of the Reiss & Sohn auction house, with extensive bidding battles.
The first session, which focused on natural sciences, was almost completely sold out. Numerous lots were in high demand throughout the auction day due to their great rarity and significantly exceeded their estimated prices. Particularly noteworthy was the sale of the first and only edition of C. G. Ludwig’s work ‘Ectypa vegetabilium’ from 1760 ff. with 200 coloured natural prints. Here in a very rare complete copy. (Hammer price 17,000 euros, estimate 8,000 euros, lot 539). The richly illustrated books of hours on offer, each one unique and very special in its own way, also attracted great interest and triggered lengthy bidding wars. Worth mentioning are the hammer price of €34,000 for a book of hours from northern France, circa 1470 (lot 244, estimate €6,000) and the €28,000 hammer price for an equally richly illuminated book of hours from Flanders, circa 1450 (lot 243, estimate €8,000).
The Grammatellus, a textbook for learning basic Latin conversation, printed by Peter Schöffer in Mainz around 1490, with an equally rare supplement, a booklet of titles with examples of the correct form of letters to people of different social standing, found several enthusiasts and ultimately fetched an impressive hammer price of 16,000 euros (estimate 3,000, lot 298A).
These are just a few examples from the first day. All of yesterday’s results can be found in the online catalogue on our website, where you also have the opportunity to submit bids for the next two days or register as a live bidder.
