Auction Highlights Part 1: Autographs & Subculture — April 10, 2025

Auction Closing April 10 at 12 PM ET

The autographs portion of the April 10 Autographs & Subculture auction includes some prominent builders—of industry, of cities, of society. Among those in the sale is one who helped fuel the machines that built the twentieth century—John D. Rockefeller—who signed the photograph that is available in one lot, and in another is a signed file copy of the marriage license of his daughter Elizabeth. An important eighteenth-century builder is the Russian empress Catherine the Great who, in 1794, founded the city of Odessa in Ukraine, and who signed the vellum document appointing a captain of artillery that is available in the sale. George Bernard Shaw, whose signed and inscribed portrait—a stunning photograph by Frederick H. Evans—is also in the sale.

Autographs by others who, in different ways, played a role in building world history are also available, including items by Thomas Jefferson, Robert Mapplethorpe, Edward Hopper, and Nelson Mandela.