Fine Press Books Lots 264-359 Including Property from the Estate of Lucia von Borosini Batten, Sold to Benefit the Albuquerque Museum Foundation Lucia von Borosini Batten was born in Chicago in 1911, the only child of Baron Victor von Borosini and Edith Dorr von Borosini. Her parents were affiliated with Hull House, the settlement house established in Chicago for social reform by philanthropist and social innovator Jane Addams; Ms. Addams was Lucia’s godmother. The von Borosini family traced their lineage back to Venetian nobility, while the Dorrs of New England prospered in the lumber and mining industries. Ms. Batten was educated in Europe and America and spoke five languages. She traveled extensively throughout her life, attending private schools in four different countries. In the 1950s, she purchased an 1875 adobe hacienda in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which was later placed on the national register of Historic Places. She loved collecting “because she could,” and in addition to paintings, furniture and other decorative objects, she built a substantial book collection consisting of more than 25,000 volumes. The collection was housed in its own private library, an adjacent structure which she built in the same territorial style as her adobe hacienda. She was an active collector throughout her life, and maintained friendships with other collectors and writers, including Vyvyan Holland. Portions of her book collection are now at the Huntington Library and the library at the University of New Mexico. In 2005, at the age of 93, Ms. Batten passed away, leaving her old adobe and much of its contents to the Albuquerque Museum Foundation, a private non-profit whose mission is to raise funds for exhibition support of permanent and traveling exhibits, acquisitions of artwork and historic objects and educational programs at the Albuquerque Museum. Restored and remodeled, the old adobe hacienda serves as the offices for the Albuquerque Museum Foundation, where the bedrooms were converted to offices, and the library serves as a meeting space for the Foundation and continues to hold thousands of books. Lucia von Borosini Batten and her husband in their Philadelpiha library.
The majority of her books can be found in the Fine Press Books section of the sale, but others throughout the sale are indicated in the provenance.
264 [ALLEN PRESS]. MONTAIGNE, Michel Eyquem de (1533-1592). Essays of Montaigne. Hillsborough, CA: Allen Press, 1948. 8vo. Title printed in green, purple and brown; headpieces and initials printed in colors throughout, initials additionally gilt. Original red brocade-covered boards, spine gilt-lettered, top edge gilt, others uncut; original gold dust jacket (some wear to extremities, chipped with small losses, scratch on front panel). LIMITED EDITION, one of 200 unnumbered copies, with headpieces and initials by Mallette Dean, and bound by William Wheeler. Property from the Estate of Lucia von Borisini Batten, Sold to Benefit the Albuquerque Museum Foundation $150-250
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FINE BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPS INCLUDING AMERICANA
