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- Art & Design
Prints from Birds of America.
DEC 7: John James Audubon
December 2010
In 1820 John James Audubon set out—shotgun and sketchbook in
hand—to find and draw every species of bird in America. No small
feat, it took him 12 years to finish; and the result, Birds of America,
a massive tome filled with 435 prints depicting some 1,000 birds,
currently ranks as the world’s most expensive book. Now, a decade
after it sold at Christie’s for $8.8 million, the classic will go
under the hammer again. On December 7 Sotheby’s in London will
auction off another of the 119 known complete copies of the book, valued
at upwards of $9.2 million. Not for the light of wallet, the sale of
books, manuscripts, and drawings from the estate of Frederick, Second
Lord Hesketh, also includes a copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio,
estimated at $2 million.
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