"La Vente des Diamants de
la Couronne," Arthur Bloche, Paris, 1888, $16,100.
NEW YORK CITY - A first edition of Arthur Bloche's La Vente
des Diamants de la Couronne, Paris, 1888, the rarest work
about the sale of the French Crown Jewels following the French
Revolution, which identifies both the purchasers and the prices
they paid, soared to a record auction price of $16,100 at Swann
Galleries' auction of books on gems and jewelry from The Henry
Polissack Library on Thursday, March 20.
Other record breaking rarities included a presentation copy of
George Frederick Kunz's The Book of the Pearl, first
edition, New York, 1908, inscribed and signed to Louis Comfort
Tiffany, $12,650; and the Catalogue of the Collection of
Jewels and Precious Works of Art, the Property of J. Pierpont
Morgan, London, 1910, $8,050.
The breadth and scope of the sale was evident in such examples as
Abraham Gorlaeus's classic Dactyliotheca Seu Annulorum
Sigillarium quorum apud Priscos tam Graecos Quam Romanos
usus, first edition, Delft, 1601, $3,910; Anselmus Boethius
de Boodt's Gemmarum et lapidum historia, first edition,
Hanau, 1609, the first major treatise on gems and gem cutting,
$7,475; and Joannon de Saint-Laurent's Description et
Explication d'une Camée deLapis-Lazuli fait...par Mr Louis
Siries, first and only edition of this important volume on
precious gems, including the production of false rubies,
Florence, 1747, $3,795.
"The Book of the Pearl," George Frederick Kunz, New York, 1908,
inscribed and signed by Louis Comfort Tiffany, $12,650.
Also of special note were Laurentius Natter's Treatise on the
Ancient Method of Engraving on Precious Stones, Compared with the
Modern, London, 1754, a scarce first English language edition
of the first technical manual, $3,680; Jean Henri Prosper
Pouget's Traité des Pierre Précieuses et de la maniere de les
employer en Parure, Paris, 1762, an important work on
jewelry, $5,750; and Aleksandr Evgenevich Fersman'sDragotsennye
I Tsvetnye Kamni Rossii (Precious and Colored Stones of
Russia), Petrograd, 1920 [i.e.1922]-Leningrad, 1925, a first
edition of the monumental work on the gemstones of Russia by the
eminent Russian geologist-mineralogist, a record $5,060.
Books outlining the mystical, occult, curative and spiritual
properties that have been attributed to gems over the years were
also offered: Speculum lapidum (The Mirror of Stones),
second edition, Venice, 1516, by Camillus Leonardus, an early
book that devotes about a third of its pages to astrological and
magical images carved on gems, sold for $16,100; and Marbode, the
Bishop of Rennes's De gemmarum lapidum,Cologne, 1539, the
earliest didactic poem since the classical era, which describes
some 60 gemstones and their magical and medicinal virtues
,brought $5,290.
Finally, among the rare books on travel and exploration was
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier's The Six Voyages... through Turky
into Persia,and the East-Indies, first edition in English,
London, 1678, one of the most important Seventeenth Century
European accounts of travel in the Middle East and Asia, which
was written by a Parisian jeweler who was one of the first
Euro-peans to visit the diamond mines of India, $5,980.
Two other noteworthy books by French jewelers were Pierre de
Rosnel's Le MercureIndien, second edition, Paris, 1672,
one of the best manuals of the gold and silversmith's trade,
bound with Robert de Berquen's Les Merveilles des Indes
Orietales et Occidentales, first edition, Paris, 1661, an
important treatise on gems, pearls and precious metals of the
East and West Indies, $11,500.
All prices quoted above include buyer's premium.
