Description
SOTHEBYS THREE CATALOG SET: THE RUDOLF JUST COLLECTION: KUNSTKAMMER AND COINS, LONDON, 12/11/01
222 pp in auction catalogs; 84 pp in the novel. 390 color illustrations, bibliographies. The sale of the "Kunstkammer" material (primarily porcelains, but also including some glass, several paintings and Just's extensive reference library), as well as his coin collection (published as a separate catalog) took place at the London Olympia on December 11, 2001. Just was a Czech whose collection was twice saved: first from incidental destruction by the Nazis toward the end of World War II, and then from confiscation by the Communist government of Czechoslovakia in the early 1960s. The third volume of this set is a reprint of a highly fictionalized account of these incidents by Bruce Chatwin, who was a member of the Porcelain Department at Sotheby's and became fascinated by Just's story after it was related to him by Kate Foster, then a junior member of the department who had met Just on a porcelain study trip in 1966.
