Sotheby's (London)

(27 cm), 68 (4) pp., illustrations (most in colour). 1 lot. Publisher’s printed wrappers. - The Ottheinrich Bible is the earliest surviving illuminated manuscript of the New Testament in German. Written c. 1430 as a single, enormous book, it was later rebound into eight volumes. Three volumes were sold by the Ducal Saxe-Coburg-Gotha Art Foundation to the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in 1950; the remainder of the Bible, consigned to Sotheby’s by the same foundation, was sold on the eve of the auction to the German State of Bavaria for an undisclosed sum (the pre-sale estimate was “in excess of £2 million”). ¶ Unmarked copy.