Reason and Revolution Part 1 photo taken at Albertine Books
The first instalment of Reason and Revolution: Extraordinary Works from a Distinguished Private Collection, a dedicated single-owner auction devoted to the history of scientific thought, takes place at Sotheby’s in New York on October 20. Headlined by first editions from Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton, alongside a rare surviving manuscript in Newton’s own hand, the sale reunites landmark works that, in several cases, have not appeared on the market in more than three decades.
The October sale traces the history of scientific inquiry from Copernicus’s heliocentric model through Newton’s laws of motion; a second sale this December will turn to the founding of the American nation, with further highlights from the collection to be unveiled later.