Oct 10, 2019 - Sale 2519

Sale 2519 - Lot 171

Price Realized: $ 3,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
CHECKING OUT A BOOK FROM THE LIBRARY GOETHE, JOHANN WOLFGANG. Partly-printed Document Signed, "Goethe," accomplished in holograph, order slip for loan of a book from the Grand Ducal Library in Weimar. The document, in German, promising to return the book, whose author and title Goethe has written, "John Ranking Wars and Sports," in English. 1 page, 4x6 1/2 inches; folds, faint scattered foxing and soiling; framed with a portrait. Weimar, 7 January 1826
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Additional Details

The book Goethe borrowed, Historical Researches on the Wars and Sports of the Mongols and Romans, by John Ranking and published in London in 1826, might have been referenced while Goethe wrote his Novelle, published two years later, in which the hunting of animals plays a critical part. The borrowed book's lengthy subtitle makes the association clearer: ". . . [I]n which Elephants and Wild Beasts were Employed or Slain, and the Remarkable Local Agreement of History with the Remains of Such Animals found in Europe and Siberia."