(TALMUD, BABYLONIAN).

AUCTION 70 | Thursday, September 22nd, 2016 at 1:00

Fine Judaica: Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autographed Letters, Graphic and Ceremonial Art

Back to Catalogue Download Catalogue

<Previous Lot

/322

Next Lot>

Lot 304

(TALMUD, BABYLONIAN).

Talmud Bavli. With commentary of Rashi, Tosaphoth, Piskei Tosaphoth. Compendium by Asher b. Jehiel, commentary on the Mishnah by Moses Maimonides, plus index of decisions “Ein Mishpat.” <<A MAGNIFICENT, WIDE-MARGINED DELUXE SET. PRINTED ON THICK PAPER AND A THIRD LARGER THAN BENVENISTE’S STANDARD ISSUE.>> Ex-library, browned and dampstained. Original uniform blind-tooled contemporary calf over heavy wooden boards, upper covers with titles in gilt, hinges present although most clasps lacking, recently rebacked, new endpapers, rubbed. Folio. Vinograd, Amsterdam 87-101, 103-5, 108, 113, 117-135 and 137; Fuks, Amsterdam 216; Rabbinovicz, Talmud pp. 93-5; M.J. Heller, The Seventeenth Century Hebrew Book (2011) pp. 592-3.

Amsterdam: Immanuel Benveniste 1644-47

Est: $20,000 - $30,000

PRICE REALIZED $40,000

<<A RARE BIBLIOPHILIC SET OF THE FIRST PRINTING OF THE TALMUD IN AMSTERDAM.>> Formerly in the collection of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Among the Jews, with institutional morocco label on most upper covers. This unique set was lavished with extraordinarily high production values. The standard Benveniste Talmud edition was recently sold by Kestenbaum & Company (Sale 69, lot 177), the present set is a considerably more dramatic production. The quality of paper utilized, the extraordinarily generous margins of each and every leaf, the lavishness of the binding, all would have taken Benveniste a considerable amount of additional attention to detail and clearly was custom prepared for a person of great note. <<A unique issue of Immanuel Benveniste’s esteemed uncensored edition.