Nov 11, 2008 - Sale 2162

Sale 2162 - Lot 81

Price Realized: $ 6,240
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
JOSEPHUS, FLAVIUS. Guerra dei Giudei. [208] leaves, including initial blank. Roman type. Folio, 323x212 mm, early Italian binding of blind-stamped and painted metal foil over wooden boards with later leather frame added on covers, rebacked in the 20th century with red morocco; occasional soiling and foxing or browning, insignificant worming toward end not impairing legibility, puncture across fore edge of approximately the last 30 leaves, scattered contemporary marginalia, manuscript table of contents in same hand on initial blank and preceding binder's blank. (Florence: Bartolommeo di Libri, 6 July 1493)

Additional Details

first edition in italian, in an unusual early italian binding. The tipped-in catalogue description of this copy from a 1936 sale at Sotheby's cites 4 comparable examples known (see below). BMC VI, 649; Goff J490. From the library of Edward Cheney (1803-84), who assembled notable art and book collections during an extended residence in Italy, with his bookplate and initialled ownership inscription dated Florence 1841, sold as lot 971 in his sale at Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, 28 June 1886; later sold as lot 228 in a sale at Sotheby & Co. on 18 December 1936 to Maggs, with their catalogue description tipped in.