Books, Maps & Manuscripts

The maps, books, manuscripts and autographs section includes one of the broadest in our auction offering, but at the same time is also the most exciting, as it combines literature, art, science, cartography, the history of government, the history of discoveries and the biographies of a wide variety of personalities from the late Middle Ages to the present day.

Before the invention and spread of modern printing in the mid-15th century, books were written by hand, usually on parchment, with great effort and expense, and sometimes with artistic illuminations. However, book illumination reached its artistic peak in the late Gothic period in France. A particularly beautiful example is a single sheet on parchment, probably made in the Duchy of Burgundy, depicting King David and Bathsheba bathing, which most likely came from a so-called Book of Hours (sold for 5,000 euros).
Printing again played a major role in Martin Luther's success and the implementation of the Reformation. The complete Luther Bible was published for the first time in Wittenberg in 1534. A few years later, Lucas Cranach the Younger created the full-page illustrations for a Luther Bible printed in 1541 by Nicolaus Wolrab in Leipzig. Due to its rarity, a copy of this Bible fetched 9,500 euros despite significant defects in condition and restoration.
In 2020, Schloss Ahlden auctioned off the extensive cookbook collection of Hans Joachim Große Gorgemann, whose now rare titles reflected the development of the art of cooking from the Renaissance to the period around 1900 (total proceeds 25,000 euros). A highlight of this collection was the extremely richly illustrated "Neues Saltzburgisches Koch-Buch" by Conrad Hagger, published in Augsburg in 1719 (proceeds: 4,900 euros).
An unparalleled book project by the engraver and publisher Matthäus Merian was his "Topographia Germaniae", published in over 16 volumes since 1642, with more than 2,000 views of the Holy Roman Empire, which is still considered one of the most important works of geographical illustration. Most of the volumes were divided up over the centuries because of their decorative vedutas, so that complete copies have become rare today, such as the single volume on Saxony, Meissen, Thuringia and Lusatia from 1650 (proceeds: 3,800 euros).
One of the most beautiful and important illustrated works of botany is the "Herbarium Blackwellianum", published in Nuremberg from 1750 to 1773. Owned by a family of pharmacists for 200 years, the first three volumes by A total of six volumes cost a remarkable 3,200 euros.

Theodor Fontane's "Effi Briest" is one of the few works for which a first-class artist created congenial illustrations - namely Max Liebermann. He contributed 21 lithographs for a luxury edition published in 1926/27 in a limited edition of 325 copies (proceeds 2,400 euros).

Old maps by no means reflect dry topography, geography or cartography, but rather, upon closer inspection, open up exciting chapters of history, discoveries, colonialism and European ideas about foreign countries. One of the rarest, most important and internationally most sought-after maps of the 17th century is the "Carte du Royaume de Siam et des Pays Circonvoisins". Printed in Paris in 1686, the map shows Southeast Asia with the present-day Kingdom of Thailand, Singapore, Sumatra and Malaysia and a title cartouche decorated with elephants. It was created in close historical connection with a trip by a French delegation to Siam and a Siamese embassy residing in Paris in 1686/87 (proceeds 17,000 euros).

Maps of exotic countries from around 1600 are extremely fascinating and decorative at the same time, when the Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch sailed around the world to America and as far as Japan, China and Australia. Amsterdam became the centre of European cartography around 1580 as a result of trade and the Dutch colonies in the East Indies. Cartographic products such as atlases, globes, wall and sea charts were not only tools for sailors, merchants and scientists, but also increasingly became an object of interest for the wealthy. From the end of the 16th century, Dutch publishers, cartographers and engravers had almost a world monopoly on the production and distribution of maps and atlases for over 150 years, which were even more widely distributed through publication in several languages. A large map collection yielded a collection of early, sought-after Renaissance maps of South America, the Indian Ocean, China and Japan, published in Amsterdam between 1584 and around 1600, with imaginative, figurative staffage that depicted not only ships and sea monsters but also local animals, indigenous people and even cannibals (sales: 2,200 to 4,300 euros).

Hardly any other area allows collectors to get closer to important personalities from intellectual and cultural history, literature or even politics and rulers than autographs, be they simple signatures or longer letters.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was not only a poet, passionate naturalist, privy councillor, but also statesman and minister. Shortly after the young Goethe came to the small duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach in 1775, he was put in charge of mining and the so-called "Mining Commission" founded in 1777. In this role, he had to sign a printed receipt from the "Mining Commission" in 1791 (proceeds 4,100 euros).
Goethe was also one of the greatest admirers of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) - naturalist, explorer, universal genius and cosmopolitan, scholar and patron. Humboldt is considered one of the most productive letter writers, not only of his time, but also of Goethe. He wrote at least 30,000 letters to a wide variety of people. In 1843 he wrote a letter to the publisher and politician Johann Georg von Cotta (1796-1863), followed in 1855 by a letter to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV's personal librarian Dr. Charles Duvinage (1804-1871), both of which raised 2,900 euros each.

A contemporary of Goethe and Humboldt, and one of the most important, influential and controversial diplomats, politicians and statesmen in the first half of the 19th century, was Klemens Wenzel Lothar Graf (from 1813 Prince) von Metternich (1773 - 1859), Foreign Minister, Chief Minister and State Chancellor of the Austrian Empire from 1809 to 1848. In 1811 he wrote a letter of recommendation in French for his cook from Paris, who had served him for 30 months (proceeds 3,200 euros).
European history is directly tangible through two autographs for Alexander Graf von Unruh (1726 - 1806). In 1774, the legendary last Polish king Stanislaus II August Poniatowski (1732 - 1798) issued a certificate for the count, who played an important role as Director General of the Mint of the Kingdom of Poland and Vice President of the War Council (proceeds: 9,500 euros). After the last third partition of Poland in 1795 by Austria, Prussia and Russia, Alexander Count von Unruh with his castle and domain in Karge (Unruhstadt) was under the control of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia (1770 - 1840), so that in 1797 the latter issued him a new, lavishly designed count's diploma with an award certificate (proceeds: 6,800 euros).
While simple signatures of Wilhelm II (1859 - 1941) as German Emperor are common, other autographs are rare. During World War I, the Kaiser had himself photographed in a field-grey uniform in 1916 and gave the photograph in the original imperial gift picture frame to General Paul von Hoepfner (1849-1924), who had taken part in the China campaign and the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900/01. (Proceeds: 3,000 euros).
The writer, poet, painter and Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), who had left Wilhelmine Germany in 1912 and became a staunch opponent of the war in Switzerland, was in stark contrast to Wilhelm II. One of Hesse's specialties were poems illustrated by himself with watercolors, such as a poem sheet written in 1930 with a landscape watercolor on the reverse influenced by Paul Klee, August Macke and Louis Moilliet (proceeds: 3,000 euros).