Yesterday, the Christie’s auction house sold The Rothchild Prayerbook, a Book of Hours, illuminated manuscript for $13,605,000 with the buyer’s premium. The auction held at the Rockefeller Plaza in New York had an estimated sale value of $12,000,000-$18,000,000.
The book, a masterpiece of Renaissance art, contains lavish and extensive miniature illustrations of unsurpassed beauty in the forms of the works of Gerard Horenbout, Simon Bening and his father Alexander Bening. Alexander Bening (died 1519), was an early 16th-century South Netherlandish miniature painter of the Ghent-Bruges school, the school where he most likely trained his son Simon, who specialized in producing book of hours for royal or very rich patrons. The book of hours is a Christian devotional book popular in the Middle Ages, that is today the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Gerard Horenbout (c. 1465–1541) was a Flemish miniaturist painter to Archduchess Margaret of Austria, and also briefly worked at the court of Henry VIII in England.
Similar to the Sotheby’s auction of the Bay Psalm Book that sold for $14,165,000 (estimated to sell for $15,000,000-$30,000,000 at the end of last year, The Rothchild Prayerbook registered a sale at the low end of the estimated value. In fact, the books which are pretty much unique in their own importance and composition have turned out through these two events to be of approximately equal value.
| The Bay Psalm Book | The Rothchild Prayerbook | |
| Genre | Religion & Theology | Religion & Theology |
| Description | The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre. |
A Book of Hours, use of Rome, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum. |
| Auction date | 26-Nov-13 | 29-Jan-14 |
| Imprinted by | Stephen Day | Ghent or Bruges |
| Auctioneer | Sotheby’s | Christie’s |
| Auction estimate | 15,000,000—30,000,000 | $12,000,000 – $18,000,000 |
| Size | 174 x 104 mm | 228 x 160mm |
| Imprint location | Cambridge, Massachusetts | Bavaria |
| Imprint date | 1640 | c.1505-1510 |
| Hammer price (including Buyer Premium) |
14,165,000 USD | 13,605,000 USD |
| Place of event sale | New York | New York |
| Condition | Title-page lightly silked on verso with minor marginal loss just touching ornamental border; reinforced at inner margin, repaired at inner margin, with small loss to lower fore-edge corner, and silked on blank verso; Pages with tiny loss at lower margin one with small ink blot; 3 tiny holes costing bits of 4 letters; Leaf shaved close at fore-edge verso just touching verse numbers with loss at lower fore-edge corner costing about 6 words; some browning throughout, occasional minor marginal chips or tears, a few tiny scattered ink-holes. |
Small stains to upper edge of blank margins and smudge in the margin. Slight pigment losses from the backgrounds of two miniatures, small smudge on the edge of border. A few miniatures with tiny inconsequential pigment losses, otherwise in immaculate condition.Lacking 4 leaves of which 3 were inserted singletons with miniatures and 1 integral leaf with illuminated initial and border “TO REMAIN IN PRIVATE HANDS.” |
| Provenance | Stephen Northup (d. 1687) of North Kingston, Rhode Island (notations on title-page verso) — Old South Church in Boston |
ANSELM VON ROTHSCHILD (1803-1874), who laid the foundation for the Austrian Rothschilds’ collections. Followed by BARON NATHANIEL VON ROTHSCHILD (1836-1905), son of Anselm. BARON ALPHONSE VON ROTHSCHILD (1878-1942): he inherited Nathaniel’s palace and, presumably, the manuscript along with it. |
| Binding | Mid-nineteenth-century black morocco over beveled boards,1850 rebinding |
Binding with silver-gilt centerpieces showing the lion rampant of the Palatinate and the diaper of Bavaria. Rebound but not trimmed. |
| Features | Lacking proper punctuation and spelling in a loose translation of the original Hebrew into English Metre. |
Illuminations:12 full-page, calendar boarders with camaïeu d’or frames with roundels illustrating major feasts, zodiac signs and full-color miniatures of occupations of the month, 5 small miniatures with accompanying full-page borders, 67 full-page arch-topped miniatures with surrounding borders. |
| Importance | First book printed in the USA |
One of the group of spectacular manuscrits-de-luxe produced around 1490 to 1520 for an international clientele and members of the Habsburg court in the Netherlands. |
Besides selling at the low end of the estimated range, The Rothchild Prayerbook, which was at auction once before in 1999, delivered no significant appreciation in value having sold for $13.3m then. That sale was part of another Christie’s event of the Collection of the Barons Nathaniel and Albert von Rothschild. Even though Christie’s did not wind up promoting the sale as intensely as the Sotheby’s crew had done during the months before the Bay Psalm Book auction, the benefit that any additional marketing effort would have generated is questionable. Bringing the same collectible item to the bidding table within such a short timeframe may had an impact on collectors.
At the end of the day, the combined result may be that the high end market for book collecting is still below its peaks which were attained during the high flying energy days, observed prior to the bursting of the dot-com bubble.
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