Peter Kiefer founded his eponymous antiquarian bookshop in Pforzheim, Southern Germany, back in 1979, triggered by his own passion for rare and collectable books and art. Over the years, the number of clients and regular customers increased significantly, leading up to the decision to broaden the selling strategy – compiling the first auction catalogue in 1985.

Initially starting with two auctions per year with approximately 1,500 to 2,500 lots, Peter Kiefer Buch- und Kunstauktionen now hosts five selling events per year, with a live broadcast on several different online platforms, with up to approximately 4,000 lots per auction and catalogue.

The auction history includes various top-selling lots like the magnificent Russian coronation album Opisanie (auction 2016, lot 4062), sold at the hammer price of €160,000; a Lyonel Feininger oil painting (auction 56, lot 4962), also sold for the six-digit-figure of €150,000; and, last but not least, a first edition of volume one of Das Kapital by Karl Marx (auction 101, lot 247), which reached €75,000.

But in the past three-and-a half decades, the company’s ventures also included several major events outside its own premises – including the auctioning-off of the 60,000 objects from a princely library and the liquidation and sale of several collections – among them the extensive movable property of the monastery Zum heiligen Grab (The Holy Sepulchre), Baden-Baden.

In auction 119, to be held from July 8 to 10, another top lot is coming up for sale – a large painted bird’s eye-view depicting the islands of Malta, Gozo and Comino, surrounded by a large fleet of prominently flagged ships.  The 18th-century painter (who has remained anonymous so far) provides two large legends in the bottom, laying more or less like sheets over a balustrade and listing all the points of interest – the harbours, lines of fortifications, the different settlements as well as the magnificent arched structure of the aqueduct Akwadott ta’ Wignacourt.