Greetings ARLISIANS!
Our library has a mystery. When I began work at the Huntington Library
fifteen years ago, we had a set of high quality reproductions of Italian
Renaissance and Baroque drawings published by Istituto Alinari from 1976
through 1980 sitting uncataloged on our folio shelves. The Library of
Congress treats "Biblioteca di disegni" as a monographic series, and has a
cat record for each title, recording individual authors. The set includes
28 clamshell boxes in brown cloth with leather spines and gold lettering.
Each box contains a booklet about 40 to 50 pages and a portfolio of usually
about 40 drawings. Each box is 49 cm. tall. According to LC, there were
325 numbered sets published. Our set is numbered, I think, 58. We cannot
find an acquisition or gift record for this title. According to RLIN there
are from 8 to 12 copies of this set in RLIN libraries. Do any of you
remember how you acquired it? I could write to what would have been the
primary U.S. vendor or distributor to inquire about their sale records. I
am thinking of writing to the Instituto Alinari to ask them the identity of
the purchaser of our numbered set. Also, I'm curious as to its worth. One
savvy librarian says the set could be worth $60,000 to $70,000!
Thanks,
Linda Zoeckler
Head, Huntington Art Reference Library
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