La collection Ribes
Day 2: The Library

On 12 December, Sotheby's Paris will offer for sale the extraordinary library of Counts Jean and Édouard de Ribes in which all the great texts of French literature, from the 16^th to 21^st centuries, are represented. Only been seen by a few visitors until now, the de Ribes' library spans six centuries of rare and precious books, from Montaigne to Aimé Césaire, from Apollinaire to Proust, from Picasso to Louise Bourgeois.

Highlights will include: a first edition of Montaigne's Essais, published in 1580 and preserved in the original vellum binding (estimate: €300,000-€500,000); a heavily-corrected luxury copy of À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, 1920 by Marcel Proust (estimate: €60,000-€80,000); a sublime copy of the Livre de fêtes published in 1745 for the marriage of the dauphin to Maria Theresa of Spain, bound by Padeloup for the daughter of Louis XV (estimate: €30,000-€50,000); Roy Lichtenstein's La Nouvelle chute de l'Amérique (estimate: €30,000-€40,000), Ode à ma mère by Louise Bourgeois (estimate: €20,000-€30,000), and Parler seul by Joan Miró bound by Brother Edgar Claes (estimate: €7,000-€10,000).