Xenophon's Opera, 1534

Lot 28
16.10.2025 10:00UTC +00:00
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$ 63 500
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1471951
Lot 28 | Xenophon's Opera, 1534
Estimate value
$ 25 000 – 30 000
[GROLIER BINDING] XENOPHON (c.430–c.355 B.C.). Opera. Basel: Andreas Cratander, 1534.

The Mac Carthy Reagh-Syston Park-Hollins-Schiff copy of Xenophon's works, bound by Jean Picard for Jean Grolier and handsomely printed by Cratander's humanist press in Switzerland. Translators for this edition include Erasmus and Willibald Pirckheimer. This was one of nine Grolier bindings owned by Phyllis Goodhart Gordan. Bookbindings from the Library of Jean Grolier, xvi-xvii; Hobson Renaissance Book Collecting, Appendix I.iv.c; Le Roux de Lincy 349; Portalis and Shipman 555; USTC 606415.

Folio (323 × 200mm). 4-part woodcut border and historiated initial opening text, historiated woodcut initials, printer’s device on title and final verso (minor loss at edge lower corner in final quire, faint dampstain in 2 fore-margins). Bound for Jean Grolier by Jean Picard: contemporary Parisian calf over thin pasteboard tooled in gold with BM tools 1, 8b, 10, 12, 16, and others, upper cover lettered with title at center and Grolier’s ‘et amicorum’ motto at foot (IO. GROLIERII ET AMCORUM., lower cover letter with Grolier’s motto at center, gilt edges, later spine tooled in gilt with rosettes (rebacked in the 17th century, leather lightly crackling and rubbed); 20th-century brown morocco slipcase, chemise. Provenance: Le Comte de Mac Carthy-Reagh, 1744-1811 (Catalogue des livres rares et précieux de la bibliothèque de feu M. le comte de Mac-Carthy Reagh, 1815, no. 4302) – Sir John Hayford-Thorold, Syston Park Library, 1773-1831 (his sale, Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, 12 December 1884, lot 2103; to Quaritch) – Répertoire méthodique de la librairie Damascène Morgand, 1893, no. 6432 – Jacques Rosenthal, 1854-1937, Munich bookseller, Literarische Seltenheiten aus allen Gebieten, catalogue 29, no. 1083 – Mrs. Henry B. Hollins (her sale, Anderson Galleries, 12-13 January 1915, lot 317) – Mortimer L. Schiff, 1877-1931 (red leather label; his sale, Sotheby's, 9 December 1938, lot 2478; to Maggs) – Howard Lehman Goodhart (1884–1952; label; gifted to his daughter:) – Phyllis Goodhart Gordan (1913–1994; leather label); by descent.
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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