A book by Christopher Columbus has been sold at auction in New York for $1.6 million.
The document was described by Christie’s as “the founding text of Americana” before its auction last Thursday, October 16.
The Columbus Letter is a description of his encounters on his journey to India, that ended in the Americas.
It is the first description of the continent by a modern European and contains the first ever printed illustrations of the Americas.
This copy is said to be the earliest obtainable illustrated version of the letter that Colombus sent to his patrons, Ferdinand and Isabella, monarchs of Spain. It was printed in Basel in 1494 by Johann Bergman de Olpe.
Today Columbus’s reputation isn’t as straight-forwardly heroic as this 19th century image of his landing, but his work is extremely rare and highly valuable.
The letter went into the sale with a $1.5 million to $2 million estimate.
It was sold alongside a plethora of other historic printed works, including “one of the finest complete collections of first editions by Jane Austen to ever come to auction.”
From that collection, an 1813 copy of Pride and Prejudice exceeded its top estimate of $180,000 to sell for $190,500.
In 2011, an unpublished Austen manuscript made nearly $1 million. A first edition Sense and Sensibility sold for $241,300 at a December 2023 auction.
A photograph of Albert Einstein sold for nearly six times its top estimate of $8,000 to bring in $44,500.
The picture of the scientist was inscribed to Estella Katzenellenbogen, his lover.
The PFC40 index of collectible autographs lists Einstein’s autograph as typically worth around £14,000 on a handwritten letter. Here, a personal connection and a very high quality image have no doubt added extra value, as does continuing popular interest in Einstein as a significant historical figure.
