For the new lines of Ford cars, the trend is to increase the volume. The GT40 which wins the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966 is an Mk II, the new variant equipped with a 7-liter, 427 cubic inches (CI) lightweight engine specially designed for racing.

In 1967 the high-end Ford Mustangs receive a 6.4-liter engine (390 CI); Always ahead for small high-performance series, Shelby releases the GT500 with a 428 CI engine. Logically, it is Shelby that Goodyear addresses to test the endurance of its tires.

Don McCain, a former Shelby employee, suggests equipping a GT500 with a 427 CI engine. Carroll Shelby makes a car prepared as a special, nicknamed Super Snake in his brand. It travels 500 miles on the Goodyear test circuit, with an average speed of 142 mph and a top speed of 170 mph.

The tires behave very well but this spectacular demonstration is not applicable industrially : they had been inflated with nitrogen to limit the overheating.

The production yield of the 427 engine is low and the upgrading from the GT500 base model is too expensive : McCain and Shelby wisely give up on a series of 50 that would have been the fastest road-legal cars of that time. The prototype is sold and has no continuation for half a century.

Both are now deceased. They had never forgotten the exceptional speed of this car in its single test and had signed together several identification plaques in anticipation of a series of replicas. In May 2018 Shelby American announces a limited edition of ten GT500 Super Snakes built on 1967 Mustangs equipped with a 427 CI slightly more powerful than the vintage engine.

The 1967 GT500 Super Snake was sold for $ 1.3M before fees by Mecum on May 17, 2013. The auction house had shared a video on YouTube. This car is now estimated $ 1M for sale by Mecum in Kissimmee on January. 11, lot F 124.

Unveiled on April 17, 1964, the Ford Mustang is an intermediary between the sports car and the city car that meets the needs of the public. Short and light, it is offered in convertible or coupe with many options. It will be one of the greatest successes in the history of the automobile. Its production reached 10 million in August 2018.

Bob Fria is a historian of the Mustang. In 1997 he found and bought a car with chassis number A15 and vehicle identification number VIN 00002. He observed about 50 differences with the very first Mustang model titled 1964-1/2 in anticipation of the 1965 production. He established the whole history of this car and had made all the necessary restorations while keeping the matching number for all major components.

During the 18-month development, the plant had manufactured and tested pre-production vehicles. The coupe found by Fria had been close enough to the commercial model to be released by the factory with an identification number. This car, which had none of the mouth-watering options offered by the brand, had been demonstrated for several months by a seller in the Yukon before finding its first owner.

00002 now joins in the legend of the Mustang the VIN 00001, a convertible which is kept at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. 00002 is the earliest VIN numbered hardtop in the Ford Mustang series. It was used in video shoots by 20th Century Fox for a feature film to be released in 2019 narrating the rivalry between Ford and Ferrari. It will be sold without reserve price by Barrett-Jackson in Scottsdale on January 19, lot 1365.

At the turn of the century Louis Comfort Tiffany has the choice between two techniques for developing his high-end electric table lamps : blown glass on the one hand, the application of his own patented 'favrile' glass on the other hand.

In 1901 he entrusts the realization of lampshades in favrile glass to his Women's Glass Cutting Department. The shade will then be mounted on a bronze base. The whole will display exquisite floral patterns.

The wisteria lamp demonstrates the feasibility of the project. On a flared bell shaped wooden mould, the Tiffany Girls assemble about 2,000 tiles in all colors, with a fringed lower edge that underlines the descending bunches of flowers. Bronze vine shoots provide the rigidity to this fragile form.

The mould of the wisteria lamp is then used with other color combinations composed of bigger tiles. The diversified offering now includes Trumpet Creeper, Grape and Apple Blossom shades. Three of these four variants illustrate vines, obviously matching a botanical preference of the boss.

For each model, the units are distinguished from each other by the small details of their color schemes. The passion of the amateurs generates now the diversity of the auction prices.

Made around 1905, a wisteria lamp with gradual luminous colors was sold for $ 1.57M including premium by Sotheby's in New York on December 18, 2013 over a lower estimate of $ 600K. It comes to the same auction room with the same estimate on December 12, lot 326.

The same sale also offers a rare Trumpet Creeper lamp made around 1903. It is estimated $ 800K, lot 327.

Henry Ford II requests the development of a GT model for competing with Ferrari. It must be done quickly because the 1964 season will begin soon. Ford had never designed and developed sports cars.

The aerodynamic defects of the first four prototypes, GT/101 to GT/104, are catastrophic. GT/103 and GT/104 are sent to Shelby for further testing and modification. GT/104 was sold for $ 7M before fees by Mecum on April 12, 2014.

The next prototypes are set by Shelby American after being built by Ford Advanced Vehicles. GT/105 is the first to be originally equipped with the 289 CI engine (4.7 liters) replacing the 255 CI (4.2 liters). GT/101 to GT/107 are coupes and GT/108 to GT/112 are roadsters.

The production series that starts in early 1965 under the reference GT40 is almost entirely composed of coupes. Its first variant, GT40 Mk I, is fitted with the 4.7 liter engine.

The GT/108 and GT/109 roadster prototypes are delivered in March 1965 by Ford Advanced Vehicles to Shelby. GT/108 is used to test the road performance. Having been continually maintained as a roadster, it was sold for $ 7M including premium by RM Auctions on August 15, 2014.

GT/109 is tested by Shelby for competition. It participates unsuccessfully at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1965 and is then used by Kar Kraft as a development model for the J-Car. It is the only roadster of the GT40 family to have competed at Le Mans. This Ford GT Competition Prototype Roadster will be sold by Mecum in Kissimmee on January 12, lot S 138.

After the development of printed books, illuminated manuscripts are still used for unique literary pieces. The Duchess of Lorraine wants to perfect the education of her eldest son Antoine who lives at the court of Louis XII from 1501 to 1508. This beautiful initiative is not without second thought because the ambition of the duchess is to become regent of the duchy at the death of her old husband.

The biographies written by Plutarch provide models of the virtuous lives of the great statesmen of antiquity. Before the translation published by Amyot from 1559, Renaissance readers are not interested in the parallels made by the author between the great Greeks and Romans that nevertheless form the basis of his moral demonstrations. Plutarch is then known in France by Latin translations. Most are questionable or apocryphal, having been modified or invented to flatter their sponsors.

Five manuscripts made in Paris in the early sixteenth century include Lives by Plutarch commissioned in French translation by the Duchess of Lorraine. Two of them are in larger format. The volume regrouping the lives of Demosthenes, Cicero and Cato the Elder is preserved at the National Library of Austria.

The other larger volume, 218 in folio leaves 35 x 22 cm in vellum, is dealing with the very illustrious lives of Romulus and Cato the Younger. It includes 54 full-page paintings showing transpositions of ancient history in medieval scenes beautifully contained in architectural frames. Its terminus ante quem is the death of the old duke in 1508,

These pictures are a very rare example of interpretations by the illuminators directly from the text rather than from pre-established artistic models : several instructions from the calligrapher to the artist were incompletely erased after the realization of the miniature.

This book was sold for £ 510K including premium by Sotheby's on December 7, 2010. It is estimated € 400K for sale by Pierre Bergé et Associés on December 14 in Paris (Drouot) in association with Sotheby's, lot 836.

Louis Comfort Tiffany patented in 1894 a decorative glass iridescent in its bulk. A new type of table lamps was created in his workshops from 1901. On a base most often in bronze, the lampshade is artistically assembled with hundreds of these small plates.

Trained as an artist, Tiffany is a great lover of gardens. The first release in his new line of products is the wisteria lamp, with an irregularly fringed lower edge that underlines the shape of the plants.

The Pond Lily lamp designed in 1902 is in line with another preference of Tiffany who maintained water gardens in his country estates. Its bell shaped shade is a technical feat because the upper part showing radiating stems on a blue background is an assembly made entirely of glass pieces not reinforced with bronze. Although it appears in the price list until 1906, it seems that its production has been stopped early.

14 lamps of this model have survived. One of them, with a 46 cm diameter lampshade and a 67 cm overall height, is particularly appealing in its colorful composition. It is estimated $ 1.8M for sale by Christie's in New York on December 13, lot 9. Please watch the very short video shared by the auction house.

This unit is dated 1903 with a near certainty by the rare conjunction of the new Tiffany Studios New York trademark with their old system of nomenclature of the elements.

Released in August 1939, The Wizard of Oz, fourth film adaptation of a children's book, is the most important success in the history of cinema in terms of international audience. The project had been conceived by the Metro Goldwyn Mayer to compete with Disney's growing success.

Several writers work without consulting each other. The producer accepts the script which was prepared by Noel Langley. Its penultimate version, by Ryerson and Woolf, verifies the feasibility of the screenplay. The fifth and last script is made by Langley.

On December 11 in Calabasas CA, Profiles in History sells an archive of the most important working papers of the Wizard of Oz, lot 471 estimated $ 800K, here linked on the iCollector bidding platform.

This set includes a carbon copy of the preliminary guideline prepared by the MGM in February 1938, the five handwritten versions of the screenplay from April to August 1938, the special effects logbook with 16 photos, the logbook of the shooting from March 1939, and several documents relating to the preparation of contracts concerning notably Victor Fleming and Judy Garland.

SOLD for $ 1.28M including premium

Tribal migration is changing the cultural practices. About 300 years ago, some Bantu groups are pushed by their enemies into the rainforest. The Kota then settle in the valley of the Ogooué river in current day Gabon. To honor their dead, they need to locate the buried relics. Their artists design stakes surmounted by a figure.

For nearly 200 years, these reliquary figures respond to the same general model : the oval face centered in a roughly circular frame is surmounted by a wide crescent-shaped horizontal headdress. The base is a hollowed lozenge symbolizing fertility. A neck separates these two parts.

A dozen pieces of very skillful workmanship were made by the same hand, identified as the Master of the Sébé river which is a tributary of the Ogooué. They have the very innovative feature of combining the convexity of the forehead with the concavity of eye cavity and chin of a skull. The ornamentation is embellished with metal strips.

De Grunne considers that this master was active around 1750 to 1800 CE. This date appears so old that his art could well constitute the prototypes of this new artefact. Over the years the design has varied, achieving a geometric simplification that has greatly influenced the modern European art. The Rubin specimen was sold for € 5.5M including premium by Christie's on June 23, 2015.

A reliquary figure 54 cm high from the corpus of the Master of Sébé was sold for $ 1.22M including premium by Sotheby's on November 13, 2017. Another one in a similar size is estimated € 700K for sale by Sotheby's in Paris on December 12, lot 162.

Adam Smith taught logic and moral philosophy until 1764 at the University of Glasgow. He builds his own political theories from a postulate of continuous growth of nations, now in the phase of trade after hunting, breeding and agriculture. He anticipates the British industrial revolution.

In relation with Hume, Voltaire, Franklin, and inspired by Newton's scientific method, Smith considers a logic based on the economic recognition of the labor force that would limit the power of the governments. The centralized state and its laws remain necessary to oppose abuses from the individuals.

For proposing a system of natural laws, he relies on Quesnay's theories of agricultural wealth. The application to justice enriches his vision of a free trade that is both moral and pragmatic and would further minimize the intervention of the governments.

His seminal book of political economy was published in London in 1776 under the title An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The author owned two copies of the first issue. One of them is not currently located. The other copy is estimated £ 500K for sale by Christie's in London on December 12, lot 220.

In Paris since 1947 Jean-Paul Riopelle expresses his feelings of the Canadian wild : the impenetrable forest, the seasons, the wind. With his bricklayer's trowel, he literally sculpts on the canvas with oil paint. The accumulated layers are so thick that they reach the limit of breaking.

He alternates brilliant and saturated colors on the canvas, creating blobs, scars and reflections that appear differently when the observer changes his position, simulating the wind that shakes the leaves. Like Pollock, he sees himself as an interpreter of nature and refuses to consider his art as abstract.

A superb symphony of colors titled Vent du Nord painted in 1952-1953, 130 x 195 cm, was sold on May 24, 2017 for $ 7.1M CAD including premium by Heffel over a lower estimate of $ 1M CAD.

The forest remains the ultimate goal of this artist whom Breton nicknamed the Trappeur Supérieur. With spots of light emerging amidst the muted colors, La Forêt, 130 x 195 cm painted in 1953, was sold for € 2.04M including premium by Sotheby's on December 9, 2015 over a lower estimate of € 900K.

Like Rothko, Riopelle knows that the large size invites to immersion. An untitled 200 x 300 cm oil on canvas painted in 1953 was sold for € 4.9M including premium by Christie's on December 5, 2017 over a lower estimate of € 1.5M. In the same dimensions, Forestine, painted in 1954 in the same style as La Forêt, is estimated € 2.5M for sale by Sotheby's in Paris on December 5, lot 9.

SOLD for € 4.3M including premium