Andersen Rarities, NASA Photos, Qur’an Manuscripts: Auction Preview

Here's what I'll be watching this week:

Bonhams Paris holds an online sale on Monday, April 28, For All Mankind: The Artistic Legacy of Early Space Exploration. The 449 lots are NASA photographs from the collection of Victor Martin-Malburet, and include a 1969 print of the only photograph taken of Neil Armstrong on the moon (€18,000–25,000); a 1968 print of the first Earthrise photo (€12,000–18,000); and a copy of the first selfie taken in space, Buzz Aldrin's from the Gemini XII mission (€8,000–12,000).

On Tuesday, April 29 at Bonhams London online, Airborne: A Fundraising Sale for the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, containing 53 lots of Blake illustrations showing characters in flight. Eight watercolors from his Moonlight Travellers series all share the top estimate of £2,500–3,500.

Also on Tuesday at Bonhams New York online, Father of the Modern Fairy Tale: H.C. Andersen from the Collection of Justin G. Schiller, in 116 lots. Two pieces of dollhouse furniture made and descorated by Andersen for his god-children rate the top estimate at $12,000–18,000. The first series of Andersen's fairy tale pamphlets, Eventyr, fortalte for Børn (1835–1837), bound together, are estimated at $10,000–15,000. A copy of the third pamphlet from the second series, in original wrappers, inscribed by the author to the son of his close friends Ida Wulf and Jørgen Hansen Koch, could sell for $8,000–12,000; at the same estimate range is a copy of Andersen's first appearance in print, a dramatic scene published in the August 1822 issue of the magazine Harpen.

At Chiswick Auctions on Tuesday, The Art of Nature, in 237 lots. Gould's Birds of Great Britain (1862–1873) in the 25 original parts rates the top estimate at £25,000–30,000. Among the other books and photographs is an archival pigment print of Nick Brandt's "Elephant Exodus I, Amboseli, 2001" (£3,500–4,500).

The Early Spring Miscellany sale at New England Book Auctions also ends on Tuesday, with 233 lots.

Lyon & Turnbull sell 105 lots of Travel & Vintage Posters in London on Wednesday, April 30. A two-sheet poster for Federico Fellini's 1960 film La Dolce Vita is expected to lead the way at £10,000–15,000, while Leslie MacDonald "Max" Gill's 1940 poster Tea Revives the World could sell for £4,000–6,000.

At Sotheby's London on Wednesday, April 30, Arts of the Islamic World & India, in 183 lots. A large illuminated Qur'an manuscript from fifteenth-century Mamluk Egypt could sell for £300,000–500,000; it was copied by prominent scribe Muhammad Abu al-Fadl ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab al-A'raj. A single calligraphic line from the Baysunghur Qur'an (c.1400) is estimated at the same range. A fragmentary Qur'an leaf on vellum from the late seventh century is expected to sell for £250,000–350,000.

Christie's London also sells Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds, on Thursday, May 1, in 192 lots. An epic manuscript based on the Shahnama, Garshaspnama, and Samnama texts and made possibly around Lahore in the middle of the eighteenth century is estimated at £700,000–1,000,000. A 1630s Arabic manuscript on paper of the philosophical treatise Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa' could sell for £130,000–150,000.

At Freeman's | Hindman on Thursday, 290 lots of American Historical Ephemera and Early Photography, including a collection of some 150 letters and documents relating to the conflict known as the Filibuster War in Costa Rica and Nicaragua in 1856–57 ($20,000–30,000) and a signed CDV photograph of a beardless Abraham Lincoln, mailed to a Pennsylvania congressman in April 1861 (also estimated at $20,000–30,000).

PBA Galleries sells 428 lots of Americana – Travel & Exploration – Maps & Views on Thursday, with a first edition of the 1892 Life of the Marlows rating the top estimate at $5,000–8,000. Three early California Gold Rush letters are expected to sell for $4,000–6,000.