Ader, Picard, Tajan (Paris)

Précieux livres anciens provenant de la collection d'un amateur [other title:] Manuscrits et livres anciens du XVe au XVIIe siècle … Boccace; Incunables et livres du XVIe siècle illustrés; Shakespeare, première édition in-folio; Alice au pays des merveilles (catalogue for an auction conducted by Ader, Picard, Tajan with the expertise of Claude Guérin, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 20 May 1980)

Paris, Ader, Picard, Tajan, 1980
(28 cm), [88] pp., illustrations (some in colour). Lots numbered 1-125. Publisher’s printed wrappers. - A small portion of the library assembled by Kettaneh, an American businessman of Lebanese origins; most of the collection was sold shortly after his death to H.P. Kraus. The books offered here were rejected by Kraus because he considered the prices asked by Kettaneh’s widow to be too high. They include a First Folio of Shakespeare (lot 120; West no. 193); it had been bought by Kettaneh in the Hogan sale in 1946 for $50,000, and Mrs Kettaneh reputedly demanded $250,000 (report in The Times, 19 May 1980, p.7). The copy realised 2.6 million francs (£269,430), underbid by Quaritch. The pièce de résistance of the collection was the ex-Lothian manuscript of Boccaccio, “Des Casibus Virorum & Feminarum Illustrium” illuminated by the anonymous Boucicaut Master (lot 14); bought by H.P. Kraus for 3.8 million francs (£400,000), it was re-offered in Kraus Catalogue 159 (1981), item 6, and is now Getty Museum, MS 63. ¶ Occasional pencil annotation; very good copy.

£ 22

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