The highlight of the year for the department, if not the company as a whole, was the incredible sale of a historic drawing gifted to George Washington by the Marquis de Lafayette, the French military commander and hero of the American Revolution who was one of Washington’s most trusted military commanders during the Revolutionary War. It went for nearly $2m, with proceeds from the sale benefitting the Shriners Hospitals for Children and the Masonic Charity Foundation. The Destruction of the Bastille, an ink drawing showing the infamous French prison being dismantled, was one of Washington’s most cherished possessions, hanging prominently in his presidential residences in New York and Philadelphia and then later at his Mount Vernon home.
The department also saw very good sell-through rates throughout the year, highlighted by the white glove sale of Fine Literature from the Collection of Richard C. McKenzie in June. The 297 lots of first editions and literary high spots of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were in high demand, with nearly 60% of lots surpassing the presale estimate.
In November, the Chicago various owner sale saw a remarkable sell-through rate by value of 145% on their way to a $1.9m day. Highlights included a copy of John Gould’s remarkable A Monograph of the Trochilidae, or Family of Humming-Birds, which sold for $88,900, with the top lot of the day a 1788 first edition of The Federalist Papers, presumably owned by David Olmstead, a captain during the American Revolution who served honorably at West Point, Fairfield, and at the Battle of Ridgefield. It went for $203,200, demonstrating the enduring demand for important Americana.
The department ended the year strongly with the single-owner auction, Collections of an Only Child: Seventy Years a Bibliophile, the Library of Justin G. Schiller. The auction—which achieved a total result of $1.1m—featured more than 250 lots from one of the most celebrated dealers and collectors in the country. It spanned a vast array of collecting categories and media, including Lewis Carroll’s 1860 hand-colored presentation photograph of Alice Liddell, Carroll’s muse and inspiration for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, that sold for $47,625.
