Manuscript & Markets Workshop Notes

Introduction

On February 24th, 2021 the Manuscript Migration Lab hosted a conversation with Dr. Eugenio Donadoni (CHRISTIE’S Director, Senior Specialist, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts) and Dr. Sandra Hindman (Owner of Les Enluminures). This online workshop discussed how auction houses and bookselling works, how provenance research is conducted, and how the market for rare books and manuscripts has evolved over the last few decades with the advent of technology. We have created this preliminary report summarizing the conversations and conclusions from the event for those who could not make it. 

Preliminary Questions

In preparation for this event, we developed several preliminary questions we hoped our speakers could shed light on: 

  • Can you tell us about how you got into this work?
  • Can you tell us about the range of items that you work with and perhaps some areas where you choose not to be active?
  • Where do materials come from (especially manuscripts) and who are the major purchasers?
  • Can you tell us about private ownership?
  • Who are the buyers?
  • How have you seen the practice of selling and the field evolve? What trends for the future might you imagine?
  • How do you think the market is evolving in relation to the recognition and management of Heritage, what impact do you see in your work?

Dr. Eugenio Donadoni

  • Can you tell us about the range of items that you work with and perhaps some areas where you choose not to be active?
    • Dr. Donadoni’s job as the senior specialist of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts for Christie’s involves dating, cataloging, researching (particularly provenance), describing, and evaluating objects that are primarily from the 12th-16th centuries. 
    • His department in particular works with the following items:
      • Medieval manuscripts
        • He in particular works with 12th-16th items but has also dealt with the oldest known manuscript of Ezekiel in Latin 
      • 18th century illuminated manuscript by the “Spanish forger” 
      • Early printed books
      • Cartography (maps, atlases)
      • Botanical books
      • Autograph specialty objects
        • This does not just include books but also objects connected to an author (i.e. Charles Dickens’s writing desk)
      • Modern 1st edition of books 
      • Greek Manuscripts
      • Ethiopic Manuscripts
        • Very rare and usually from the 19th-20th centuries
    • Other objects not evaluated by this department
      • Islamic art including illuminated Qurans are in a separate department 
      • Hebrew manuscripts have an external consultant
      • Papyri are handled by the antiquities department 
  • Where do materials come from (especially manuscripts) and who are the major purchasers?
    • There are two primary sources of these objects:
      • Institutions: Metropolitan Museum of Art, universities, J. Paul Getty Museum 
        • Museums that typically provide objects are located in the U.S. and are trying to raise money 
      • Private consignors: collectors (aristocrats, children of collectors)
  • Who are the buyers?
    • There are typically two types of buyers:
      • Institutions: Museums typically
        • Beinecke: usually objects with research potential 
        • Getty: more beautiful and “museum-worthy” objects
      • Trade: individuals either buying objects on commission or ascertaining items for private collectors 
  • How have you seen the practice of selling and the field evolve? What trends for the future might you imagine?
    • The peak for Medieval manuscripts was in the 1980s-90s
      • Ex: The Gospels of Henry the Lion sold in 1983 for $11.7 million
    • The market has picked up in the last five years but the interests have changed
      • People are interested in works either in French or Middle English literature
      • Buyers have changed: some buying just for art (illuminations – making quality/condition very important) and research 
  • How do you think the market is evolving in relation to the recognition and management of Heritage, what impact do you see in your work?
    • Problem: impossible to define cultural property
    • Approach: adhere to the strictest regime, which happens to be the U.S., when works are imported from certain countries 
      • An export license is required 
        • Objects from certain areas (Middle East, Turkey, Greece, Syria, and Egypt) require more documentation than this, especially if these items are of cultural importance (i.e. extensive provenance documentation)
    • Brexit: may have implications for trade relations (i.e. import/export taxes) but for now the checks on these items haven’t changed
      • For example, manuscripts that have resided in the UK for 50 years or more has to be submitted to the Arts Council Committee to determine whether an object can leave the country or not 
        • This process can take weeks or months 
        • This council can block export licenses. When this happens, the country that the object was going to must raise money for the purchase (these entities usually have a certain amount of time to do this such as 30 months)
  • Questions for Dr. Donadoni:
    • What level of documentation of provenance do sellers provide? Is there a basic requirement? 
      • Required: proof that importation was done correctly (i.e export license from origin country) 
        • Items of cultural importance undergo a more complex process
        • Christie’s does provenance research after acquisition that the seller did not provide  
          • Research is carried out until the cataloging deadline
    • Auction houses are sometimes the last glimpse we have of an object before it goes from one private collection to another. What is the role of auction houses in allowing scholars to do research?
      • His department is comprised of more academics than booksellers so they try to place the importance on access rather than ownership 
      • They are unable to give out the information of owners without their permission so, Dr. Donadoni will contact the owner as a mediator 
    • When doing provenance research for objects whose history is not complete, what do you do?
      • Run search in Schoenberg database or the Rare Book Hub 
        • Can search items based on number of leaves, miniatures, and lines or even provenance 
      • Look at relevant catalogs
    • How does the auction house handle gaps in provenance that are likely “not nice” actions but that cannot be proven?
      • These items are typically referred to the restitution team or names are checked in the “sensitive names database” 
      • If an item has a vague, possibly sensitive history, then they don’t sell it at auction

Dr. Sandra Hindman 

  • Can you tell us about the range of items that you work with and perhaps some areas where you choose not to be active?
    • There are four categories of items:
    • Language areas:
      • Latin
      • Dutch 
      • English
      • French
      • German 
      • Italian 
    • Les Enluminures takes a pedagogical approach (meaning Dr. Hindman works with individuals who have PhDs and they typically don’t outsource. However, for Greek and Hebrew manuscripts they do outsource
    • Does not work with Turkish, Arabic, or Indian items 
    • Does not work with ancient papyri because it has a lot of provenance issues
  • Where do materials come from (especially manuscripts) and who are the major purchasers?
    • There is a wide variety including book dealers, auction houses, private collectors, institutional deaccession
  • Who are the buyers?
    • Illuminated manuscripts:
      • Mostly museums purchase these (Getty, Louvre, British Library, Museum of Modern Art) 
    • Text manuscripts: 
      • 90% of buyers are institutions (the majority of these are in America)
        • Yale and SMU are some of the biggest buyers  
          • If there is a manuscript that has a sister manuscript, that owner gets the right of first refusal  
  • What can you tell us about private sellers?
    • They buy and sell about 60-100 manuscripts a year from and to private collections
  • How have you seen the practice of selling and the field evolve? What trends for the future might you imagine?
    • There is still a lot of availability 
    • Prices have skyrocketed for text manuscripts while Book of Hours and miniatures have not increased at the same rate because more institutions than ever want to purchase text manuscripts
  • How do you think the market is evolving in relation to the recognition and management of Heritage, what impact do you see in your work?
    • In the last decade, these issues have become more pronounced
    • Manuscripts require a license when being exported
    • Institutions are more sensitive to these issues (especially ones about provenance)
  • Questions:
    • How do you approach provenance?
      • Research as much as they can but still leave something for the buyer or institution because the research can never stop 
      • They go through the steps of returning the item to the “right” place when possible 
    • How do you help scholars?
      • If an item is not on the website, they’ll share your information with the owners
      • They will allow institutions to borrow parts of their collections for a few years at a time so students can study them 
      • You can email Laura Light (lauralight@lesenluminures.com) if you need specific pages of an item that Les Eluminures has in its possession
    • How do you set prices for items?
      • Compare with similar objects while taking into account the rarity, condition, provenance, bindings (i.e. if original for textual manuscripts), and the number/beauty of illuminations 
        • Follow-Up: How does this affect where an item goes? 
          • Sometimes items become too expensive for certain entities to purchase
          • However, when returning an item to the “right” place, they are flexible about the payment schedule 

 

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