Botanical Books Pillaged for Prints

Nicholas A. Basbanes, an author and obvious bibliophile, wrote a piece in The Boston Globe detailing the story of a book that was auctioned in New York and later discovered to have been destroyed for its illustrations.

The Massachusetts Horticultural Society, in a move to reduce some debt and build its endowment, sold over $5 million USD worth of books and journals. Of these, $3 million USD were sold to Chicago Botanic Garden, and these books have been kept safe.

However, the MHS made a decision to sell the remaining titles by auction through Christie's of New York. Although warned of the potential of books being destroyed for relatively easy money, the society went ahead and sold books that were entrusted to it.

Pages from one of the books sold, Nurnbergische Hesperides, an early 18th century fruit book, have now been discovered on the art market for sale between $500 to $1500 USD each.

Robert Fraker, a natural history book appraiser, had this to say: “...While the ultimate villain is the person who put the knife to the book, the Christie's sale represents a fundamental betrayal of patrimony.”

Links:

A bitter end for Hub gem - the opinion piece by Basbanes in The Boston Globe

Priceless New England Literary Collection piece from the library of the Chicago Botanic Garden

Posted by Daniel Mosquin at 12:22 AM on March 3, 2004