A Renaissance library of magnificent books and bindings will come up at Sotheby’s in New York in October. Bibliotheca Brookeriana, the T. Kimball Brooker Library of Renaissance Books and Bindings is the only library with the theme and concentration of Brooker’s ever assembled outside of Europe. There will be an unprecedented series of eight auctions of treasured texts celebrating the history of western thought and the art of bookmaking. Collector and scholar T. Kimball Brooker diligently assembled a carefully curated, extraordinary library of more than 1,300 sixteenth-century French and Italian books in their original bindings across more than six decades. Estimated to achieve in excess of $25 million, the collection will be presented in a live evening auction in New York this October – marking the first dedicated Books & Manuscripts evening auction in New York in a decade.
Among the countless treasures is the largest collection of editions from the renowned Aldine Press to come to the market in a century. Numbering approximately 1,000 volumes published roughly from the 1490s to the 1590s, the grouping represents the largest private collection of these revered and highly collectible texts in existence, with other comparable collections held in prominent institutions including University of California, Los Angeles; The Morgan Library & Museum, New York; John Rylands Research Institute and Library in Manchester, England; and
The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. A series of eight dedicated sales will begin with a live evening sale on October 11 and the first sale dedicated to the Aldine editions on October 12.
