The Ricky Jay Collection of Magic Posters, Books, and More at Sotheby’s

Though many Americans know him as an actor in such films as The Prestige, Boogie Nights, House of Games, and Magnolia, Ricky Jay was first and foremost a stage magician. In a New Yorker profile, Mark Singer called him “perhaps the most gifted sleight of hand artist alive.” Beyond performing, Jay was also a writer and scholar who documented the history of magic and magic-adjacent topics such as circuses, jugglers, automatons, con men, and more. Many items from Ricky Jay’s collection are up for bid at Sotheby’s.

One top lot in the sale is a two-volume compilation of prints described by a 19^th-century auction catalog as “An extensive Collection of Portraits of Remarkable Characters, Male and Female, Beggars, Misers, Highwaymen, Cheats, Forgers, Imposters, Montebanks, Bawds, Persons Tried for Treason, Sedition, &c.” Other available items include a magic poster that shows Harry Houdini performing one of his well-known and most dangerous tricks: hanging upside-down in a water torture cell. A selection of books about witchcraft, playbills for a variety of performances, and a book about the supposedly live autopsy of an acclaimed mind reader round out the listings. View any of these lots and register to bid at Sotheby’s.