3. [LATIN BIBLE (the “Gutenberg Bible”)]. Single leaf, printed on paper. [Mainz: Johannes Gutenberg and Johann Fust, c. 1455].

This paper leaf came from a seriously damaged copy of the Gutenberg Bible that was taken apart by the bookseller Gabriel Wells in 1920. Issued with A. Edward Newton’s accompanying essay “A Noble Fragment,” it is one of several hundred leaves that once constituted a duplicate copy of the Gutenberg Bible that the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich sold to the English collector Robert Curzon in 1832. The text of the present leaf, consisting of Exodus 9:12–11:1, was neatly rubricated in red and blue.

From the Thomas J. Harrison Collection.