[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/CKS-24546-07082026-1.jpg?w=960″]<\/p>\n
\n\tChristie\u2019s Valuable Books and Manuscripts auction in July will feature a holy grail, both figuratively and literally in the form of a 13th-century illuminated manuscript devoted to \u201cthe epic tale of the quest for the Holy Grail, the story of Merlin and his diabolic birth, and the adventures of King Artur and the Knights of the Round Table.\u201d The highlight lot of the sale is estimated to sell for \u00a31.5 million\u2013\u00a32 million (around $2 million\u2013$2.6 million).<\/p>\n
\n\tThe so-called Clermont-Tonnerre Grail is one of only three such manuscripts known to be in private collections, with some 200 others belonging to institutions. As reported by Artnet News<\/em>, \u201cNumerous versions of the story exist, attributed to numerous authors, rendering scholarship all the more important.\u201d Another related manuscript, the Rochefoucauld Grail, sold in 2010 for \u00a32.3 million (around $3.2 million) at Sotheby\u2019s.<\/p>\n \n\tEugenio Donadoni, Christie\u2019s director of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, told Artnet News<\/em>, \u201cThe stories are universal and it has so much still to offer in terms of research and enjoyment. As Merlin himself prophesies in the text itself: \u2018And the story will forever be told and gladly heard for as long as the world lasts.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIrene Fabry-Tehranchi, a text specialist at the Cambridge University Library, called the prospect of the manuscript going to an institution \u201camazing\u201d and told the Guardian<\/em> that \u201cprivate ownership of a key medieval manuscript is a real challenge for scholars. It prevents further research, unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tShe continued: \u201cI hope that \u2026 it will finally become available in a public collection. The problem is, of course, that nowadays libraries and heritage institutions don\u2019t have very much money. [But] these institutions are there to preserve these texts and to make them publicly available.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/king-arthur-manuscript-christies-auction-1234787568\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/CKS-24546-07082026-1.jpg?w=960″] Christie\u2019s Valuable Books and Manuscripts auction in July will feature a holy grail, both figuratively and literally in the form of a 13th-century illuminated manuscript devoted to \u201cthe epic tale of the quest for the Holy Grail, the story of Merlin and his diabolic birth, and the adventures of King Artur and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1959504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1959504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1959504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1959504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1959504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1959504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1959504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}