: Kestenbaum and Company's select auction of superior Hebrew
printed books from two distinguished private collections featured
some of the very best Hebrew post-incunabula. The sale also
offered selections of American Judaica.
An exceptionally rare Constantinople 1509 edition of Maimonides'
Mishneh Torah was highly sought after and brought in the highest
price of the day at $148,240 against an estimate of $80/100,000.
All prices quoted reflect a buyer's premium.
Top sellers also included a Constantinople 1540 edition of Jacob
ben Asher's Rabbinic Code in a grand contemporary binding that
was bought for $64,900; a rare first edition of Maimonides'
fundamental Rabbinic text, Sepher HaMitzvoth (Book of
Precepts), Constantinople, circa 1510, which garnered
$56,050; and Jonah ben Abraham Gerondi's classic ethical
treatise, Sha'arei Teshuvah, which realized $42,480
against an estimate of $25/30,000.
Also finding favor with buyers were a rare first edition of
Nachmanides' Hasagoth (Criticism of Maimonides' earlier
philosophical tract), Constantinople, 1510 which reached $41,300
against an estimate of $20/30,000; a magnificent Bomberg Venetian
Bible, 1546-1548, which sold for $31,860 against an estimate of
$12/15,000; and a rare Venetian 1547 edition of Isaac ibn
Sahula's Meshal ha-Kadmoni, "the illustrated Hebrew book
par excellence," which brought in $29,500.
Further noteworthy results included a Mantua inaugural edition of
the mystical Zohar, the most sacred and influential of all
Kabbalistic works, in a three-volume set dated from 1558-1560
which was purchased for $37,760; and the first Jerusalem edition
of the Passover Haggadah, 1842, which realized $20,060 against an
estimate of $8/10,000.
The American-Judaica section of the sale performed particularly
well proving that it is reemerging as a popular area of
collecting. Prime examples included Hayyim Isaac Carigal's
seminal Sermon Preached at the Synagogue in Newport, Rhode
Island, 1773, which sold for $46,020 against an estimate of
$25/30,000; a complete ten-volume set of Isaac Leeser's
Discourses on the Jewish Religion, Philadelphia, 1866-67,
which made $34,220 against an estimate of $10/15,000; and a fine,
grandly bound first edition of the first Jewish translation of
the Bible into English by Isaac Leeser, Philadelphia, 1853, which
fetched $33,040 against an estimate of $8/10,000.
Kestenbaum and Company's next sale of Fine Judaica, A Large
Library of Hebrew Printed Books Together with Diverse Judaica,
will take place on Tuesday, September 20.
