Sotheby's (London)

(28 cm), 261 (13) pp., illustrations (most in colour). 34 lots. List of prices realised loosely inserted. Publisher’s printed boards. - The sale realised £11,158,415, at the time a record price for a collection of manuscripts at auction. “Three bidders, all anonymous, scooped the pool”, one acquiring “three of the greatest manuscripts ever likely to be available”: the Carolingian Gospel book (£1m), the Psalter of Mechthild von Anhalt (£1.7m), and the Psalter St Blasien (£2.3m); the second bought the thirteenth-century Rhenish astronomic texts (£190,000), the Rothschild Bible (£42,000), and the Jacques de Longuyon, “Voeux de Paon” (£150,000); while the third bidder bought the Utrecht Book of Hours from the Cockerell and Abbey collections (£910,000), the Master of Guillebert de Mets Book of Hours (£380,000), the Popincourt Master Book of Hours (£80,000), the c. 1490 Florentine Book of Hours from the Blandford (White Knights) and Esmerian collections (£800,000). Sam Fogg was seen to buy three lots; Quaritch and Maggs one each; Günther, Ferrini and Tenschert some others (quotations from saleroom report in The Book Collector, Autumn 1997, pp.397-401). ¶ Unmarked copy.