A medieval manuscript containing an early version of the epic tale of King Arthur, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table, which has been privately owned for about 700 years, will go on public auction this summer.
Touted to sell for upwards of USD $2.7 million (CAD $3.7 million), the document, which will probably be available for institutions to buy this summer, is believed to be from the thirteenth or 14th century and comprises several distinguishing qualities, including 126 small illustrations, certainly one of which depicts Merlin as a stag, in response to The Guardian.
Created sometime between 1210 and 1310, the soon-to-be auctioned mythic account of King Arthur and the seek for the Holy Grail, penned in Old French from the Lancelot-Grail cycle, is written on vellum — a high-quality parchment — and adorned with gold leaf, in response to Christie’s, the central London, U.K., auction house overseeing the sale.
The manuscript is wrapped in Seventeenth-century green velvet.
hristie’s Images Ltd. 2026
Only three manuscripts of this type are known to exist in private hands, Dr. Eugenio Donadoni, director of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts at Christie’s, told Global News.
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“It has been a privilege to have been capable of work on a manuscript of this rarity and calibre: the stories are universal, and it has a lot still to supply when it comes to research and pleasure,” he said.
“As Merlin himself prophesies within the text itself: ‘And the story will eternally be told and gladly heard for so long as the world lasts,’” Donadoni added.
He described the manuscript as “beautifully and richly illustrated” and as “the earliest” of the three in private collections.
The “virtually unknown” manuscript has never been publicly exhibited or studied in great detail, CNN reported, but boasts an illustrious list of previous owners, including a Fifteenth-century knight, a jouster, an “obsessive medievalist” and a Twentieth-century industrialist named Jean Lebaudy, who was awarded two “croix de guerre” for his “heroic deeds in each World Wars,” Donadoni told the U.S. news outlet.
The manuscript dates centuries and is regarded as certainly one of the earliest documents to contain the legend of King Arthur.
Christie’s
Christie’s expects the upcoming auction to draw many potential bidders.
“There are such a lot of appealing angles to this manuscript: historical, art-historical, textual and cultural. There’s the Christian element — the Quest for the Holy Grail; the chivalric element: the adventures, the quests, the jousts, the battles,” Donadoni told Global News, adding its allure will likely extend to personal buyers “for a similar reasons that it appealed to the long line of homeowners who’ve treasured it over the course of the past 700 years.”
The document will probably be auctioned on July 8 in London, England.
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