The precious library of Bolivian collector Jorge Ortiz Linares will go under the hammer at Sotheby’s on Wednesday December 14 in Paris. Among the 87 lots put up for sale, the two volumes of the great epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), Don Quixoteare an exception: it is very rare that a complete edition of the novel is put on sale.
“We see examples of this caliber every thirty or forty years”, says Jean-Baptiste de Proyart, expert in old books. The lot – consisting of a third edition of book I published in 1608 and an original edition of book II published in 1615, both printed in Madrid by Juan de la Cuesta and bound in the XVIIIe century – is estimated between 400,000 and 600,000 euros.
At the end of the 1920s, Jorge Ortiz Linares, diplomat and fervent collector, went in search of a complete copy of Don Quixote, the two parts of which were published in 1605 and 1615 respectively. In 1930, his research led him to the London bookshop Maggs Bros, a place of reference for old books. Once there, the future Bolivian ambassador to France is disillusioned: the object of his desires has already found a buyer.
The last edition corrected by Cervantes
Six years later, the telephone rang in his mansion on Avenue Foch. Maggs unearthed the two volumes of Don Quixote. Jorge Ortiz hastens to get on the plane and, on December 21, 1936, pays 100 pounds of the time to buy the first part and 750 pounds for the second, in original edition.
From the publication of the first book, at the beginning of the XVIIe century, the work contributed to the cultural influence of the Kingdom of Spain by spreading as far as Peru and Mexico, where cargoes of Don Quixote have been attested.
The rarity of this universal novel is also explained by its success: read and reread, the copies have circulated a lot, which has led to their wear and tear and their disappearance over the centuries. If the first part of Don Quixote acquired by Jorge Ortiz is a reissue of 1608, it is no less rare. Last edition printed during the lifetime of Cervantes, it is also “the last one corrected by the author, from which many translations today start”, emphasizes Anne Heilbronn, director of the books and manuscripts department at Sotheby’s.
“The family had a real reverence for Cervantes and for the acquisition their grandfather had made,” says Jean-Baptiste de Proyart. Preserved for more than eighty years in his library, this key piece of family heritage is now put up for sale by the four children of George Ortiz – son of Jorge and also a great art collector – for inheritance reasons.
In anticipation of the future auction, collectors have already been able to admire the two works, in perfect condition, in London, New York and Madrid. “What is moving today is that no one [en dehors de la famille] had not seen these books since their purchase in 1936, slips Anne Heilbronn. It’s a reappearing treasure. »