Maine Antique Digest April 2015

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Maine Antique Digest, April 2015 13-C
- AUCTION -
signed in three places by George Gershwin. The music is
for “By Strauss,” a satirical waltz composed by Gersh-
win in 1936 for The Show Is On. The first page has the
handwritten lyrics composed by his brother Ira. The price
realized was $90,000 (est. $75,000/125,000), a good result
driven in part by rarity. According to Profiles in History,
the last Gershwin autograph music of comparable length
was sold at auction over 25 years ago.
An autograph manuscript signed by Franz Schubert came
from Kallir’s collection too. It sold in a post-sale deal for
$82,500 (est. $75,000/125,000). The single page, written
on April 16, 1825, is the complete Waltz in G Major for
piano, D. 844. The Albumblatt (album leaf) was written in
the album of Fräulein Anna Hönig (later Frau Mayerhofer
von Grünbühel). It was illustrated in Kallir’s book Auto-
graphensammler—lebaslanglich, published in 1977.
“I always spend a lot of time wondering about results
and what can we learn from them going forward,”
Malinowski said. It was no surprise that material fresh to
the market, in good condition, with interesting content and
provenance did well. But what about the material that met
all those criteria and still didn’t make it?
“I do feel that having the last sale in the season is not
the best thing in the world,” she said. “That has to be fac-
tored in. So I think it was a combination of the sale being
so close to the Christmas holidays and also [the fact that]
people were sitting on their hands a little bit, wondering
how the sale was going to do. Afterwards, I told the con-
signor that we were going to do a fire sale, because the
material was terrific and would never lose its value.”
That’s when those post-sale bidders came forward,
spending almost $300,000. In addition to the Mozart cover
lot, five pieces of first-edition printed music by Mozart
got sold. Printed music was what the collector bought last,
said Malinowski, “when he had practically everything else
that he wanted. It was the perfect segue.”
For more information, phone the auction house at (310)
859-7701 or see the Web site .
com).
An Asian bidder paid $30,000 for this early image of Gustav Mahler that
has an autograph poem in German inscribed and signed on the back. The
carte de visite is approximately 4" x 2 2/3". The poem is translated in the
catalog as: “As Karl often remembers me / This picture I present him /
And with this likeness / Present myself as well / Were this not true: a great
braggart / would be little Gustav Mahler.”
An autograph musical quotation by Franz Liszt
sold for $12,000 (est. $3000/5000). Large at approx-
imately 11" x 8½", it is three measures in E-flat
major. The place and date are indicated as “Ham-
burg, 9 July 1841.”
An autograph envelope by Wolf-
gang Mozart fetched $72,000 (est.
$50,000/75,000). Written in French, it is
addressed to his father. The date, Jan-
uary 8, 1783, is in another hand, likely
the speculation of a scholar. The rare
example of the composer’s handwriting
is approximately 7¼" x 4 1/3". The red
wax seal is mirrored by a seal tear.
A fragmentary autograph manuscript by George Frideric
Handel sold on the Internet for $37,500 (est. $30,000/50,000).
The single, unsigned page is approximately 7½" x 9" and
was previously unknown and unstudied when the collector
bought it in 1989. Research showed that it was the missing
second leaf of Handel’s earliest autograph manuscript will.
Likely meant to be kept as his copy, it contains three words
on the front and three lines on the reverse in the composer’s
hand.
An autograph letter signed by Richard Wagner sold for $15,000
(est. $6000/8000). The two pages, 7¼" x 5" each, in German, bear
the date June 3, 1869. The subject was Lohengrin, specifically a
proposed performance of it at the Royal Court Theatre in Copen-
hagen and what Wagner would be paid. “I have no intention to
bargain about it because my works are not commodities,” he told
his correspondents to relay to the theater management. The origi-
nal envelope was included with the lot, as was a cabinet card pho-
tograph (not shown) of the composer.
A leaf from the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet fetched $87,500.
The autograph manuscript, signed and dated May 18, 1875, is Act I,
Scene 10—“The Seguidilla.” Signed in full, the single page is 10¾"
x 13¾".
An autograph letter signed twice by Ludwig
van Beethoven sold for $96,000. The one page in
German, approximately 8" x 10", was written to
an unidentified official on behalf of Beethoven’s
nephew Karl. It is apparently unpublished.
Six pages (one shown) of autograph music
signed by George Gershwin sold for $90,000.
Each is each approximately 13¼" x 10 1/3".
Signed in three places and with lyrics in the
composer’s hand, the work is “By Strauss”
from the show The Show Is On. The lot included
the sheet music for that show and for An Amer-
ican in Paris.
☞