Jeschke Jádi: Rare Books, Prints, Historical Photography
- by Announcement, Rare Book Hub staff
Jeschke Jádi: From the Philosopher’s Stone to the Dancing Star
Jeschke Jádi will auction the Kurt Dite Nietzsche Collection, alchemical books, and an extensive section of art books and decorative arts in Berlin on 24 October 2026.
Kurt Dite bought a paperback copy of “Human, All Too Human” at the age of eighteen. That first purchase grew into a collection encompassing 52 Schaberg bibliography numbers. It forms the centrepiece of Auction 161, “Valuable Books, Prints, Historical Photography”, which Jeschke Jádi Auctions Berlin will hold on Saturday, 24 October 2026, from 10 am (Catalogue 161). Dite was a research assistant to Jörg Salaquarda in Vienna and a long-serving editor of “Nietzsche-Studien”. According to the catalogue’s foreword, a visit to the Nietzsche documentation centre in Naumburg inspired him to start collecting. His Nietzsche collection comprises lots 832 to 873 and is also presented in a separate catalogue, “First Editions, Timeless Thought”. It begins with Nietzsche’s philological essays in the “Rheinisches Museum” (lots 862 and 863) and the index issue (lot 859, estimate €1,500), and extends to the Insel editions designed by Henry van de Velde. (jvv-berlin)
The collection’s highlight, carrying its highest estimate, is “Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik” (“The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music”; Leipzig, Fritzsch, 1872; lot 844, estimate €9,500), in the publisher’s original rust-brown cloth binding. The catalogue describes this binding as “virtually unobtainable”: the auction house could trace only one copy in original cloth offered at auction, in 1972. Even the Nietzsche collections at the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, in Naumburg and in Sils Maria do not hold a copy in this binding. “Nietzsche contra Wagner” (Leipzig, Naumann, 1889; lot 858, estimate €8,000) is one of just 100 privately printed copies. According to the catalogue, it is the last work whose proofs Nietzsche corrected entirely himself. The first printing of Part One of “Also sprach Zarathustra” (“Thus Spoke Zarathustra”) is bound in a privately assembled volume together with the appendix and supplement to “Menschliches, Allzumenschliches” (lot 832, estimate €7,500). It is one of only 85 copies retaining Schmeitzner’s unaltered title page. The first edition of “Die fröhliche Wissenschaft” (“The Gay Science”) of 1882 (lot 842, estimate €6,000) is one of 212 copies with the original title page.
Van de Velde’s book design is represented by three volumes. “Ecce Homo” is one of 150 copies on Japanese paper (lot 837, estimate €7,200). The “Dionysos-Dithyramben” (“Dionysian Dithyrambs”) features a title page hand-gilded by Graily Hewitt and a binding by the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts (lot 836, estimate €4,500). These are joined by “Zarathustra” in folio format (lot 873, estimate €3,600). More affordable entry points include the collected edition of 1886 (lot 833) and the expanded edition of “Die fröhliche Wissenschaft” of 1887 (lot 843), each estimated at €900.
The second major focus appears in the natural sciences section. Lots 1443 to 1462 comprise alchemical books dating from the late sixteenth to the eighteenth century. The earliest is Johann Wittich’s “Bericht von den wunderbaren bezoardischen Steinen” (Leipzig, 1589, first edition; lot 1458, estimate €1,900). Gerhard Dorn’s “Schlüssel der Chimistischen Philosophy” (Strasbourg, Zetzner, 1602; lot 1448, estimate €1,400) is offered in its first German edition. The catalogue describes the “Tractatus vere aureus” attributed to Hermes Trismegistus (Leipzig, 1610; lot 1451, estimate €1,200) as a foundational text of Western alchemy. Several composite volumes bear the ownership stamps of Heinrich Tränker and Robert Petroschka. One, containing Johan Isaac Hollandus’s “Tractatus de Lapide Philosophico” of 1669 (lot 1452, estimate €1,400), includes more than 135 densely handwritten leaves in an early hand. Estimates for the group range from €800 for the “Hermetischer Rosenkrantz” of 1747 (lot 1445) to €2,200 for each of the composite volumes offered as lots 1443, 1449, 1455 and 1456.
The art books section (lots 641 to 694) is particularly appealing to collectors of the decorative arts. Its key item is the design album of Gebr. Sommé of Breslau, jewellers to the Royal Prussian Court (lot 669, estimate €3,600). It brings together 194 drawings dating from around 1839 to 1895: floral brooches, Holbeinesque pendants, aigrettes and star tiaras. A French album from the 1860s (lot 668, estimate €1,400) contains approximately 80 jewellery designs in pen and pencil, some with specifications for size or carat weight. The catalogue calls it a “unique record of French jewellery-making during the Second Empire” (lot 668).
At €4,500, Joaquín Manuel Fos’s “Instrucción metódica sobre los muerés” (Madrid, Widow Ibarra, 1790; lot 667) carries the highest estimate in this section. The catalogue ranks the folio among the most important eighteenth-century technical treatises on the Spanish silk industry. Twelve folding plates by Juan Barcelón y Abellán illustrate the processes and tools used in producing moiré (lot 667). The art of turning is represented by Salivet Bergeron’s “Manuel du Tourneur” in the expanded second edition of 1816, comprising two text volumes and an atlas of 96 engraved plates (lot 666, estimate €1,000). The catalogue describes it as the most comprehensive manual of turning from around 1800.
Other volumes explore glass, silver and princely collections. Wilhelm Froehner’s “La Verrerie antique”, on the Charvet collection (1879; lot 655, estimate €900), contains 34 plates, some hand-coloured. The catalogue of the Bern goldsmiths and silversmiths H. Fries (c. 1868; lot 670, estimate €800) presents silver tableware in 27 mounted albumen photographs. Christoph Gottlieb von Murr’s guide to the Imperial Treasury in Vienna (Nuremberg, 1771; lot 657, estimate €800) is offered in its first edition. Richly illustrated works broaden the selection. Twenty hand-coloured stipple engravings by Carlo Lasinio and others depict Tuscan costumes around 1796–98 (lot 651, estimate €1,500). The “Album Paris-Théâtre” by Bulla Frères (c. 1860; lot 647, estimate €1,000) illustrates Parisian theatre interiors, from the Opéra to the Odéon. A green Romantic-period morocco binding brings together three works on Auguste Ricard de Montferrand’s sculpture collection (St Petersburg, 1847–50; lot 676, estimate €1,000). According to the catalogue, Theodor von Pauly’s daguerreotype manual of 1843 (lot 678, estimate €1,200) is among the earliest German-language instructional books on the technique. The section concludes with catalogues raisonnés, including the four volumes on Henri Matisse (lot 689, estimate €1,200).
The online catalogue also lists more affordable lots in this section. Eighteen Art Deco designs for terrazzo floors, dating from around 1930 (lot 659), are estimated at €500. The “Recueil de Décorations Intérieures”, with 65 plates of ornamental ironwork (lot 649), and the porcelain catalogue of the Parisian Grand Dépôt (lot 672) are each estimated at €600. Tommaso Vincenzo Falletti’s “Introduzione allo studio de’ preziosi musei” (Rome, 1783; lot 664) comes from the library of King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony and carries an estimate of €750 (lot 664).
The highest-estimated lot in the entire auction is a group of 35 original colour newspaper supplements featuring Jimmy Swinnerton’s comic strip “Jimmy” (lot 948, estimate €15,000). Thirty-four date from its inaugural year, 1904. The catalogue describes Swinnerton as one of the founding fathers of the American newspaper comic strip. The sheets probably survived because German Americans sent them to relatives in Germany before 1914 (lot 948). Rösel von Rosenhof and Kleemann’s “Historia Naturalis Ranarum” (Nuremberg, 1758; lot 1599, estimate €9,000) includes a hand-coloured frontispiece by M. Tyroff, two sets of the 24 plates and a preface by Albrecht von Haller. The catalogue calls it the most artistically significant work in herpetological literature. Carrying the same estimate is “Le Théâtre de Séraphin” (Paris, 2003; lot 914): this artist’s book combines a text by Antonin Artaud with etchings by Georg Baselitz and a musical score by Wolfgang Rihm. The deluxe edition includes an additional suite of eight hand-signed etchings. A composite volume containing three works by Niccolò Tartaglia (Venice, 1554–1562; lot 1513, estimate €4,600) also includes the “Nova scientia”, described in the catalogue as the very first printed treatise on ballistics.
Among the early printed books, an unbound, unopened sheet from the “Breviarium Halberstadense” (Nuremberg, Georg Stuchs, 1515; lot 8, estimate €2,000) stands out. It reveals how the pages were arranged on the printing sheet. Alongside it is the Venetian incunable “Quadragesimale de floribus sapientiae” by Ambrosius Spiera, printed in 1488 (lot 9, estimate €3,000). Listed online at €300 is Servatius Gallaeus’s “Sibyllina oracula” (Amsterdam, 1689; lot 3). Modern works include “Gefesselter Blick” by Heinz and Bodo Rasch (Stuttgart, Zaugg, 1930; lot 957, estimate €6,500), with contributions by El Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy, Schwitters and Tschichold, as well as Salvador Dalí’s “L’Art d’aimer” of 1979, with four signed colour woodcuts (lot 1307, estimate €5,000). Barrière’s “Les oiseaux de volières et de parcs” (Bordeaux, 1886; lot 1627, estimate €3,200), illustrated with 50 colour lithographs, features in the ornithology section. Historical photography ranges from a salt print by Ivan Bianchi of 1854 (lot 1433, estimate €800) to 93 photographs documenting the construction of the Hoover Dam (lot 1440, estimate €1,200).
The auction begins on Saturday, 24 October 2026, at 10 am at Villa Puhlmann, Potsdamer Straße 16, in Berlin-Zehlendorf. Viewing takes place on 17 October from noon to 4 pm, from 19 to 22 October from 10 am to 7 pm, and on 23 October from 10 am to 6 pm, as well as by appointment.
View or print this catalogue. Bon Chance!