Swann

Swann Auction Galleries in New York are an auction house that have been trading in rare and antiquarian books and works on paper since 1941.

The family-run business moved to new and larger premises in 1999, and now holds over 40 sales every year.


img_50-3.jpg

Escher’s deep fascination with the Amalfi Coast

27 November 2023

Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) arrived on the Amalfi Coast in 1923 and ultimately created more than 100 works there based on the landscape.

img_50-1.jpg

Eye-catching Italian posters on offer

25 September 2023

Swann Auction Galleries’ (30% buyer’s premium) summer vintage poster sale in New York on August 3 received a significant boost from a single consignment.

img_12-8.jpg

Epitome of Art Deco that sailed into oblivion

17 July 2023

The SS Normandie was both the apogee and the nadir of the Art Deco movement.

img_22-3.jpg

English 17th century works play their part in New York

15 May 2023

Early English plays provided the principal attraction in a US saleroom

img_65-3.jpg

‘It will be a great day for us to suspend this publication’

08 May 2023

The Negro Motorist Green Book, first produced in 1936, was the indispensable guide for African-American families travelling.

img_19-1.jpg

Buyer not afraid of Virginia Woolf value

03 April 2023

Complete with the often missing dust jacket and entirely unrestored, as the cataloguer’s notes were pleased to point out, a 1925 Hogarth Press first of Virginia Woolf’s famous novel Mrs Dalloway was offered as part of a March 2 sale at Swann Galleries (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) of New York.

img_46-6.jpg

Rapoport collection part two on offer at Swann

12 September 2022

The October 13 sale of Early Printed Books at Swann Auction Galleries in New York will feature part two of the library of Ken Rapoport: English literature, tales of chivalry from the Renaissance, and more Shakespeare, Chaucer, Cervantes, Donne, and others.

img_19-2.jpg

Bird’s-eye views of the US

11 July 2022

Offered as part of a New York sale held by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) were the two imaginative aerial views reproduced here.

img_30-2.jpg

Oyster poster could be a perfect catch

11 July 2022

Swann Auction Galleries is holding a sale of vintage posters in New York on August 4.

img_14-2.jpg

Shell posters sure to create interest wherever they sell

02 May 2022

The You Can Be Sure Of Shell adverts are some of the most familiar and renowned examples in British graphic design.

img_42-1.jpg

On the scent of posters at Swann

07 March 2022

Italian liqueur tempts buyer to pay highest price at dedicated sale

img_32-4.jpg

Dulac Snow Queen drifts in

07 March 2022

This splendid example of the illustrative work of Edmund Dulac, a watercolour, gouache and ink drawing on paper, is his original artwork for one of the 28 plates he produced for a 1911, Hodder & Stoughton edition of Stories from Hans Andersen.

img_49-3.jpg

First edition of TS Eliot's first book on offer at Swann

14 February 2022

Swann Galleries is holding a sale of Books and Autographs in New York on February 17.

img_31-3.jpg

Photos anniversary sale celebration at Swann

07 February 2022

Seventy years ago in 1952 Swann Galleries in New York held the first auction dedicated to photographs in the US.

img_29-1.jpg

Hindu legends and real life

20 December 2021

Modestly estimated at $3000-5000, a richly illustrated manuscript that presents in two finely bound folio volumes a pictorial record of the ‘Costumes et Plantes de L’Hindoustan’ made $80,000 (£58,395) in a New York auction.

img_44-4.jpg

Pro-vaccination: Jenner work

11 October 2021

The sale of Early Printed Books at Swann in New York on October 14 includes this author’s presentation copy of Edward Jenner’s On the Varieties and Modifications of the Vaccine Pustule, Occasioned by an Herpetic State of the Skin.

img_27-4.jpg

Rare copy of important work by proto-feminist bid to 10-times estimate

30 August 2021

A recent sale in New York was led at $65,000 (£47,100) by a disbound but rare example of the work of Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-95).

img_36-5.jpg

Charles Loupot poster for Mekka cigarettes emerges at Swann

26 July 2021

Swann’s sale of vintage posters in New York on August 5 will include this poster from 1919 designed by Charles Loupot to advertise Mekka cigarettes.

img_31-4.jpg

Into US battle – the English version

14 June 2021

An Americana sale held by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) was led at $55,000 (£39,855) by an 1830, Palmyra first of 'The Book of Mormon'.

img_21-2.jpg

Martin Luther King's plea from Birmingham Jail

03 May 2021

Sold for $150,000 (£109,490), some 10 times the low estimate, was a lot comprising 11 Xeroxed pages that constitute a pre-publication draft of Martin Luther King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ of 1963.

News

Categories