What are "hand copies"?
Catalogues published on the occasion of an auction are outstanding sources for many art historical research questions (provenance research, catalogues raisonnés, authenticity questions, etc.), as they sometimes also contain references to former owners in addition to information on the work's identity (artist, title, dimensions, technique, condition, in some cases illustration). The high source value of auction catalogues is further enhanced by annotations. These are handwritten notes on buyers or hammer prices that auction visitors have recorded in their copy of the auction catalogue during or after the auction. However, the information on buyers and prices obtained in this way is usually incomplete and not always reliable due to the individual interest of the annotating person in certain objects or groups of objects.
In contrast to these "randomly" or selectively and partially annotated catalogues, the hand copies and protocol catalogues, on the other hand, are editions of the auction catalogue that were annotated by employees of the auction house for internal use. In the run-up to the auction, they usually noted in the hand copies who had consigned the objects to be auctioned, what minimum price was to be achieved, and who had submitted a written bid (bidding order) for an object before the auction. In addition, they often contain detailed lists of the consignors and clients, further information on the provenance of the objects, and auction tactical information. Finally, during the auction, the hammer prices awarded and the names of the persons who had bought an object at auction were noted, or - if the agreed minimum price was not reached - at which highest bid an object was "returned".
While hand copies thus contain more the course of an auction, all the players involved and the various price categories, protocol catalogues primarily document the results of an auction. They usually contain the limit and hammer prices as well as the names of the buyers. In both variants, there is also often information on objects offered “outside“ the catalogue, which is either added to the catalogue in handwriting or recorded in lists. This information is all the more relevant because it has survived exclusively in the hand copies or protocol catalogues.
Accordingly, there were several annotated copies for an auction, which fulfilled different functions. Researchers are currently aware of about 1,000 hand copies and protocol catalogues from the Helbing Gallery. In addition, about 80 protocol catalogues from the Kunstsalon Paul Cassirer on the auctions that the Galerie Helbing organized together with the Kunstsalon Paul Cassirer have been preserved. All of these hand copies and protocol catalogues are currently being digitized by Heidelberg University Library and successively put online.
Since they originate directly from the business context of Galerie Helbing or Kunstsalon Paul Cassirer and were annotated by gallery employees, the information they contain is generally complete and reliable and thus constitutes a source inventory of outstanding importance.