Hamburg, 23 May 2007, (kk) - With the outstanding result of total final bid prices exceeding overall limits by 130%, Ketterer Kunst has linked up seamlessly with the successful first Hamburg evening auction held in autumn 2006. This result obtained at the most recent auction of Rare Books - Manuscripts - Autographs - Decorative Prints was matched by a sales quota of 85%. The overall proceeds from the two-day auction marathon of 21 & 22 May 2007 amounted to a round € 1.2* million.
"I am very pleased that the evening-auction concept has proved its worth above and beyond the novelty effect. It is particularly gratifying that we have been able to bring the fascination of the world of books closer to many clients who had previously been mainly interested in art," thus Robert Ketterer, auctioneer and owner of Ketterer Kunst.
The first edition of the "Biblia slavonica" aroused a great deal of interest. An English dealer outbid both the order book and the competition in the auction room at € 36,000*, doubling the estimate for the Ostrog Bible.
The unique work by Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau on landscape architecture and garden design exceeded the estimate (€ 25,000) to fetch € 34,000*, paid by a German private collection that outstripped the field to acquire it.
In the field of geography and cartography, the outstanding lots were the Gerhard Mercator atlas "Galliae Tabulae Geographicae", which went to an Austrian private library for € 38,000, thus fetching the highest price of the auction, and a Frederick de Wit "Atlas" boasting 50 tinted copperplate maps. A Dutch library bid up this nearly complete edition of the early work from an estimate of € 20,000 to a sale price of € 31,000*.
The Zacharias Châtelain "Atlas historique ..." went for nearly six times the estimate of € 4000. A fierce bidding skirmish broke out between bidders in the auction room and telephone bidders, with the work ultimately going to a Scandinavian private collection for € 23,000*.
Another work that handsomely exceeded its estimate was the "Japanischer Warenkatalog" ["Catalogue of Japanese Wares"]. This catalogue of utilitarian and decorative household objects from Japan reproduced in more than 1330 wash-and-India-ink drawings appealed to an antiquarian bookseller. Sold for over € 19,000* (estimate: € 5000), this elaborately put together catalogue went to England.
Another similar-looking work, "Objets d’art décoratif", also crossed the Channel to London rather than eastward to Russia. Carrying an estimate of € 4500, this collection of chromolithographic plates depicting clocks, vases, commodes and jewellery from Russian public and private collections as well as Church treasuries, more than quadrupled it to fetch € 19,000*.
An 1879 signed Gottfried Keller autograph of his celebrated Evensong poem from Zurich, "Eigenhändiges Gedichtmanuskript mit Unterschrift" was bid up by Swiss aficionados, ultimately going to a Swiss dealer for over € 13,000* (estimate: € 1,500).
Who says classics are a defunct field of study? "De philosophia" by M. T. Cicero entered the lists carrying an estimate of only € 300 as a bound book in three sections with 6 wood-engraved printer’s devices. Robert Harris’s highly readable recent biography of the last champion of the Roman Republic seems to have ensured lively bidding. Appropriately, an English dealer secured this handsome exemplar € 12,000*.
"Eine neue Art von Strahlen" ["A New Kind of Ray"] is neither "A Noble Radiance" nor just the title of the first edition of W. C. Röntgen’s first report on X-rays. It is probably also an apt description of the beaming face of the German collector who acquired this treatise, published in Würzburg in 1895 for over € 7,000*, more than twice the estimate.
"Le Sujet est clairière de son corps" by physician and poet Charles Racine also more than doubled its estimate of € 5,000. Illustrated with eight original Eduard Chillida etchings, the book was acquired by an Austrian private collection for € 12.000*.
Post-auction sales run through Friday, 22 June 2007.
Since it was founded in 1954, Ketterer Kunst has been firmly established in the front ranks of auction houses dealing in art and rare books. While the Munich headquarters in the Prinz-Alphons Palais is responsible for the two traditional annual auctions of Modern Art & Post War, the Meßberghof in Hamburg is the venue for two traditional auctions a year, each based on the following fields: Old Masters and 19th-Century Art /Marine Art and Rare Books - Autographs - Manuscripts - Decorative Prints as well as Modern Art & Post War, with a focus on works on paper. In addition, exhibitions, special and benefit auctions for charity as well as live auctions online are regular events at Ketterer Kunst.
Hamburg, May 24, 2007
* Sale price is hammer price + 20 per cent surcharge
