Excerpts: “Sotheby’s to Present the Collection of Robert S. Pirie”

• From 2-5 December 2015 Sotheby’s New York will present the single-owner sale of Property from the Collection of Robert S. Pirie, one of the world’s leading book collectors.
• Over 60 years, Mr. Pirie built the finest collection of 16th and 17th-century English literature in private hands with significant copies of works by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Marlowe, and John Donne among others.
• Overall the collection is estimated to fetch in excess of $15 million with highlights on view at Sotheby’s London from 3-6 October before the exhibition in New York in late November.
• Born in Chicago and Harvard educated, Robert Pirie (1934-2015) was a celebrated corporate lawyer and investment banker, described in a 1988 New York Times profile as “Megadealer for the Rothschilds” who was as dynamic as he was successful.
• Iconoclastic and larger than life, he was many things – an accomplished sailor, generous philanthropist, and enthusiastic progressive. Indeed, Mr. Pirie was the nephew of two-time presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson and, to his delight, was on Richard Nixon’s ‘Enemies List’.

Source: Fine Books Magazine