A rare edition of a work of Maimonides fetched more than three times its estimated value as some of the last books of a famous Judaica library compiled by an English collector went on sale in New York at the end of last week.
More than 100 volumes from the Valmadonna Trust Library that once belonged to Jack Lunzer of London were sold for over $315,000 (£246,000) at auction by Kestenbaum’s in New York.
A mid-16th century Hebrew translation from Italy of the most celebrated work of medieval Jewish philosophy, Maimonides’s The Guide for the Perplexed – which was originally written in Arabic – went for $40,000 (£31,150), considerably more than the estimated $10,000-$15,000 catalogue price.
A 15th-century Hebrew translation of an Arabic medieval treatise sold for $60,000 (£46,730).
