An auction room bidding battle ended on the phones at Sotheby’s New York as the Shem Tov Bible, one of the most important Jewish religious texts in private hands, was sold for close to its high estimate.
The 700-year-old book was sold to an unnamed telephone bidder for $5.8 million, rising to $6.9 million with fees.
It had gone into the sale asking for an opening bid of $4 million with a $5 million to $7 million estimate.
The book is the work of Rabbi Shem Tov ben Abraham Ibn Gaon, a 13th- to 14th-century Spanish religious scholar and writer.
Its journey to Sotheby’s was long but is fairly well documented.
After its creation in northern Spain it was in the Middle East for several centuries and was quoted in legal opinions written in the region in the 16th century.
A page from the Shem Tob Bible shows Iberian Islamic influences in its archway design.
It was probably in Syria for a time, and was then owned by a family in Tunis.
In 1909, David Sassoon, perhaps the most important collector of Hebrew books and documents, bought the Bible for £85 in Tripoli.
He sold it in 1984, when it realised $825,000.
It was subsequently bought by the Swiss collector Jacqui Safra, who was the seller this time.
The Bible (the Hebrew Bible corresponds to what Christians call the Old Testament) is full of religious and cultural significance.
Its age gives it a direct link to the lost Hilleli Codex, one of the most accurate tellings of the original Hebrew Bible, which it references.
Its design has Jewish, Christian and Islamic influences and is an especially beautiful relic of the relatively religiously tolerant culture of the Iberian peninsula at the time.
The market for the rarest and most valuable manuscripts is very small but can be extremely competitive.
Last year, the Codex Sassoon (named for David Sassoon, one time owner of the Shem Tov Bible), was sold for $38.1 million in New York.
It is the most complete Hebrew Bible and became the most valuable manuscript ever sold at auction when it was bought for the ANU Musuem of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv by Aldred Moses, an American lawyer.
Bill Gates paid $30.8 million for Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, known as the Codex Leicester.
The most valuable document ever sold is a first-edition copy of the Constitution of the United States that was sold for $43.2 million in 2021.
Unique moments in history capture the imagination and command high prices. Sotheby’s auctioned a collection of early American political documents in June, when an early printing of the Declaration of Independence for over $3.3 million.
