There’s a stretch of Madison Avenue where you can stand inches from a hand-colored bird painted nearly two centuries ago, or run your eye along a coastline mapped before the country even had a name. Most people walk right past the door. And later this month, a handful of those treasures are about to change hands.
The gallery is Arader Galleries, at 1016 Madison Avenue near 78th Street, and on June 27 it will hold an auction it’s calling “Extraordinary Works of Art & American History.” The sale gathers travel and exploration works on paper spanning the 16th through 20th centuries — among them original prints from John James Audubon’s Birds of America, natural history watercolors, oil paintings, rare books, rare maps, and Americana.
This year’s catalog carries an added layer of meaning. Timed to the 250th anniversary of the United States, the sale features a special selection of cartographic works and rare books assembled in commemoration of the milestone — the kind of material that doesn’t just illustrate American history but is American history, printed and bound and drawn at the moment it was happening.
For collectors who know the name, none of this is a surprise. Founded in 1971, Arader Galleries has spent more than five decades as one of the world’s leading dealers in rare maps, prints, books, and watercolors of the 16th through 19th centuries, with locations across several American cities. The firm buys and sells more original Audubon prints than anyone else in the country — a specialty that began when founder W. Graham Arader III started collecting maps, atlases, and Americana as an undergraduate at Yale.
Live bidding begins at 1 p.m. on June 27, open to collectors in the room and online, with a 20% buyer’s premium. Full lot details, estimates, and registration are available here, and the gallery is open to the public Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at 1016 Madison Avenue for anyone who’d like to see the works up close before the gavel falls.
