Archive: Business & Technology

National Book Auctions, located in Ithaca, NY, hosted a Sunday, October 23rd auction featuring a broad spectrum of rare antique and vintage books, as well as a fine array of artwork and ephemera. Highlights of this auction included several personal libraries of scholarly books relating to literature and philosophy, as well as a large estate collection of art and architecture-related reference books, many in large folio formats. This 428-lot auction also featured manuscript leaves dating back to the 15th century as well as early hand-colored botanical and ichthyological plates.

A complete ten-volume set of “The Works of Cicero” achieved a hammer price of $3120.00 (including buyer’s premium). This extremely rare set was printed during the years 1546 through 1567 by Sebastian Gryphius of Lyon. Gryphius was the most prolific printer in France during the most fertile period of French Renaissance humanism. This set is bound in 17th century French calf with gilt tooling, with labels and raised bands on the spines, and marbled page edges and endpapers. There were no auction records on file of this complete set coming to market previously.

Two original marble sculptures by Masayuki Nagare fetched hammer prices of $1020.00 and $900.00 (including buyer’s premium). Nagare is a celebrated Japanese sculptor whose pieces can be found in focal international settings including an impressive example that stood in the plaza of the World Trade Center buildings before they were destroyed.


Realizing a hammer price of $900.00 (including buyer’s premium) was a group of artwork by Hungarian painter, photographer and Bauhaus professor Laszlo Maholy-Nagy. This lot featured two exhibition posters, one of the 1923 painting "Sur Fond Blanc," held by the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, as well as a reproduction of the 1924 "Composition Axx" from the Musee Pompidou in Paris. Paired with the exhibition posters was a mixed media piece of artwork bearing the artist's stamped name over the signature of Hattula Maholy-Nagy, the artist's daughter and the executor of his estate.

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