First, Antiques and the Arts Online reports on Sotheby's sales from the Delmonico Judaica Collection, including the following:
The sale's top price was achieved by an extremely rare and exquisite Fifteenth Century illuminated Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, on vellum completed by Levi ben Aaron Halfan in Florence, 1489, which sold for $362,500. A series of 40 lots from the Babylonian Talmud printed in Venice by Daniel Bomberg, 11 of which derived from the only known copy printed on blue paper, more than doubled the high estimate to achieve $2.25 million. After spirited bidding, all 11 lots of Bomberg's Talmud printed on blue paper were purchased by a private collector, and will remain assembled as a collection.Second, LiveAuctioneers is advertising a 1611 Hebrew/Latin biblical fascicle:
Pair of George I parcel gilt silver Torah finials, William Spackman, London 1719–20, brought $338,500.
Pair of George I parcel gilt silver Torah finials, William Spackman, London 1719–20, brought $338,500.
Chief among these was four tractates printed on blue paper, which brought $230,500 against a presale estimate of $40/60,000. Two tractates on blue paper brought $206,500, and a single tractate on blue paper soared to $194,500.
Collectors also enthusiastically competed for the largest selection of Hebrew incunabula, or early printings, to come for sale in years, yielding strong prices for the first complete edition of the entire Mishnah, with the commentary of Maimonides, completed in Naples, 1492, which achieved $254,500. Nahmanides' Perush ha-Torah (Commentary on the Pentateuch), Rome, 1469–73, which totaled $338,500; and the Teshuvot She'elot (Answers and Questions) by Solomon ben Abraham ibn Adret, Rome, 1469–73, which brought $302,500.
1611, Book, "Daniel, Hezra, & Nechemiah", printed in Hebrew and Latin, Fine.All I can say is that I hope that the collectors who bought or buy these items don't go dark with them. They should remain available for scholars of the Renaissance and the early modern period to study.
Original 1611 printing of the books of Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, 7.25" x 4.5", hardcover, 134 pages. This rare, early 17th Century work was printed in Antwerp, Belgium by Officina Plantiniana Raphelengii. This volume has a Hebrew text with interlinear Latin translation, by the celebrated Dominican scholar, Santes Pagninus (i.e. Pagnini, 1470-1536). Bound in old sheep skin or leather (most of which has worn off), generally the book is clean internally. The cover is well worn, the hinges cracked, and there is an institutional stamp on the title page. The pages are numbered from 415 to 548, and the volume opens and reads in traditional Hebrew format (from right to left, and back to front). The Dominican friar's Latin version of the Hebrew Bible, the first since St. Jerome's, contributed greatly to virtually every 16th Century scriptural translator.
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