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Quack Sculpture Tools July 15, 2019 July 16, 2019
During the summer, when auction schedules slow down, The Hot Bid showcases world auction records.
What you see: The Earnest-Gregory dovetailed goose, a decoy that dates to circa 1870 and bears the name of two of its past owners as its creator is unknown. Copley Fine Art Auctions sold it in July 2018 for $810,000, setting a record for a goose decoy and a record for a decoy by an anonymous maker.
The expert: Colin McNair, decoy specialist for Copley Fine Art Auctions.
Ok, I'm starting with what might be an impudent question. The decoy depicts a Canada goose. In the 21st century, I know these birds as pests. Why did hunters in the late 19th century go after them? Were they pests then, too? Did they eat them? Was it both? Geese are good table fare. There's a lot of meat on each bird. They're great sporting game and they're fun to hunt. The modern frustrations with the geese are just that–trouble with residential geese. Historically, geese were held in high regard and decoy-makers held them in high regard. Top goose-makers had fun with the head positions. You get a tremendous amount of variation from top goose makers. Geese are still celebrated by sportsmen and hunters today.
The goose decoy is named in part for Adele Earnest, the collector who sourced it and its two sibling decoys in 1954. Did she leave any notes about how she discovered the trio? She mentioned that she got them in Columbia, Pennsylvania. If there were details, they weren't particularly telling on who made them and what the circumstances were. The fact that she remembered the town and the year is above the standard then in terms of collecting. And in collecting communities, there's a lot of confidentiality about where something is sourced. A lot of times, collectors don't divulge all the details of their finds.
Have any other decoys by this anonymous maker turned up? There are three geese known by this maker. Adding to that are a number of shorebirds that have the dovetail construction. Some of them were found in Massachusetts, and some believe the geese are from Massachusetts because of the shorebird find. Not until they were X-rayed could we be sure they were made by the same maker. The intricate techniques and specific materials used in construction identify them as being by the same maker.
No one else uses dovetail construction on their decoys? The dovetail construction is virtually unseen in any other decoy.
And the trail on the trio of decoys is completely cold? They were made as tools, and as such, were not signed as works of art. As tools, their value sunk to almost zero when plastic decoys entered the field. Only when they were recontextualized as found art did they have value again. When they were tools without a job, no one kept notes. It's not uncommon for decoys to lose their entire history. At this point, the trail is cold unless the history is contained within the objects themselves.
Collector Stewart Gregory bought two of the three decoys from Earnest. Where is the third? Number three is in the Jerry Lauren collection. He has the other one.
Why did Gregory buy only two of the three? We don't know the specifics, but it is unusual for collectors to acquire duplicates, of geese especially. Gregory was actually breaking with collecting norms by acquiring two geese with the same head position. It's a testimony to his incredible excitement. With duck decoys, you have hens and drakes. Sexual dimorphism encourages collecting them in pairs. Shorebirds are small enough to keep two or three together. The exception is to have two geese in identical form.
Adele Earnest said the trio of goose decoys prompted her "subsequent devotion to the decoy as an art." Donal C. O'Brien Jr., who had dozens of elite decoys, considered this one "the finest bird in his collection," and "the best of the two" Gregory geese. What makes this decoy so great? This decoy strikes me as a complete object, purely from a visual sense. It will satisfy you from 100 yards away and when you have it in your hand. As a complete work of art in craftsmanship, it leaves virtually no room for improvement. I would add that as a decoy, it has impeccable provenance, and what I consider a perfect amount of gunning wear.
Gunning wear means it was "shot over"? Hunters fired their guns over the decoy in pursuit of live birds? Yes. As a tool for attracting birds, it was used in the water. It was used and abused as any decoy would be over [hunting] seasons.
What can we infer about the maker of this decoy by looking at it? When I see a piece like this, I see an incredibly talented craftsman who has a few audiences. Number one is the birds he's trying to attract. Number two is the customer. Number three is their own standards and the ideas they may have about creating objects that live up to the talents they're endowed with and should share. Some of these makers had a work ethic that was tied to their religion. They felt they had a duty to make the best object they could with their hands. They see themselves as having god-given talents they're obliged to use to the fullest. That's the idea. It's evidenced when you look at the parts that are not seen by the bird or the hunter.
You mean details that only show up on X-rays–a technology that did not exist when we think this decoy was made? I've looked at a thousand decoy X-rays. There's a strong connection between the level of craftsmanship on the outside of the bird and the level of craftsmanship on the inside. There's an almost perfect correlation, makers holding their own personal standards.
What other things can you tell about the maker? Looking at its surface alone, I can identify half a dozen different painting techniques, which is unusual for decoys. You're looking at a competent, well-trained artisan who paints well. He doesn't labor over it. And that's just the paint. The hollow body is meticulously hollowed, and the decoy has one of the most sophisticated head-to-neck transitions of any decoy. It has a nice finish, which is more challenging, but also can be more rewarding to the viewer and [can] show the most competent craftsmen at work. You can sand out a lot of mistakes. This person left it clean and crisp because he got it right the first time. The competence of the carving has led people to believe or wonder if it was made by a professional carousel carver, but nobody has lined up a carousel carving with this particular bird.
And we can be confident that the anonymous 19th-century maker is male? It's far outside of precedent to be a woman. There are no documented female carvers [from that era, but you have to] consider that it possibly could have been a female painter. There's a lot of collaborative effort in decoys.
What is your favorite detail on this decoy? My favorite thing about the bird is its totality. There's no other decoy as satisfying from so many perspectives as this one, to me. But it's probably the way the bird is hollowed out very intricately by hand to create the most stable, lightweight, and durable decoy possible. He's doing work that no one is going to see.
It's only going to show up on an X-ray? Only you at Copley will see it? [Laughs] Yes. The only people who'll see it are the people at Copley, the clients, and the people who come to my X-ray talks.
Does the dovetail base on this goose decoy offer the hunter an advantage? The dovetail joint from the neck into the body offers a great advantage to a hunter. It allows the hunter to take the bird apart and transport it much more easily, with less chance of breakage. It's understood, from a collecting standpoint, that goose heads [on decoys] crack or break off entirely. This bird is of durable construction, with a removable head. That's no small part of why it's in the condition it's in, and why it has an unbroken neck today.
Were you surprised it sold for $810,000? It was not a surprise that it went at that level. It was worth every penny. In terms of records, this is the third-highest price for any decoy at auction. It's also a record for any goose decoy at auction, and an auction record for any unknown [decoy] maker.
How long might this record stand? What else is out there that could beat it? There are several goose decoys that could break this number. The first to come to mind are by Elmer Crowell, one of which used to hold the world record for any decoy. Others sit very close to the top of the list. I see the high-end decoy market continuing to expand and grow. I expect a significant amount of turnover in price at the very top.
Why will this piece stick in your memory? This specific decoy, before I ever saw it, was my favorite in the entire field of American waterfowl. The more time I spent with it, the better it got. I was so fortunate to be part of offering it for sale.
What was it like to hold it in your hands? It was a little scary. Let me rephrase that–it made you very aware you were holding a tremendously valuable object. It was also very satisfying. It's a commanding and engaging object. It could dominate any space you put it in. Those are traits that only the greatest objects I've handled have.
Text is copyright Sheila Gibson Stoodley. Images are courtesy of Copley Fine Art Auctions.
Copley Fine Art Auctions will hold its Sporting Sale 2019 on July 25 at Hotel 1620 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Top lots include the Harmon "Dust Jacket" Plover trio, a group of shorebirds carved by Elmer Crowell, estimated at $730,000 to $1.1 million.
Colin McNair spoke to The Hot Bid in July 2018 about a preening black duck by Elmer Crowell from the same auction that ultimately sold for $600,000.
Yes, I filed this story under "Quack" even though the decoy depicts a goose. #SorryNotSorry
Artifacts Books and manuscripts Collectibles Pop Culture Science and Natural History Tools July 11, 2019 July 11, 2019
What you see: Original, first-generation NASA videotape recordings of the Apollo 11 moon walk and subsequent events. Sotheby's estimates the three reels of tape at $1 million to $2 million.
The expert: Cassandra Hatton, vice president and senior specialist for books and manuscripts at Sotheby's.
How do we know these are the only surviving first-generation recordings of the Apollo 11 moon walk? Let me add a word in there: only surviving first-generation NASA recordings of the Apollo 11 moon walk. That's important. The way these tapes were created was the images were sent from the moon and captured in California and Australia, and those images were recorded onto slow-scan tapes that took up 45 reels. The information on the 45 reels were scanned onto two-inch AMPEX reels, of which there are only three. What was seen at Houston and NASA mission control is what is on those tapes. NASA was the first place to receive the images [from ground stations in Australia and California], and they were then sent to various television stations around the world. With each subsequent bounce from station to station, [the images] degraded each time. What you saw live on TV was a lower quality than what was on these tapes.
So it–the TV images of the moon walk–were like a photocopy of a photocopy? Kind of, yeah. How we know these are the only surviving original first-generation NASA tapes is they were sold at a government surplus auction in 1976. The selling body was NASA. Many years later, when NASA searched for the slow-scan tapes, the 45 reels couldn't be found. Then they discovered, unfortunately, that they had been erased and recorded over. The slow-scan tapes were the best tapes until the moment they were recorded over. Then the ones we're selling became the best-surviving tapes because they're the only NASA recording left.
Do we know when the 45 reels of slow-scan tapes were erased and recorded over? Nobody knows, but it's safe to assume NASA had not discovered that, or had not erased the tapes when they sold [this set of three tapes] in a government auction. My guess is they would not have sold them if they realized [the slow-scan tapes] were erased or would be erased.
So it was safe for NASA to sell the trio of tapes in 1976 because they had, or reasonably believed they had, the slow-scan tapes? Yes. It was not a negative for NASA to sell them, because they had a superior copy.
When did NASA discover that the slow-scan tapes had been erased? In 2008 or 2009, around the time of the 40th moon walk anniversary.
That must have been a gut punch, to realize the slow-scan tapes of the first moon walk were gone. I'm sure it was because of budget cuts. Around the period of the [1970s] energy crisis, federal buildings were required to turn the air-conditioning off if there were no employees there on the weekend. The tapes in one building in Texas were found covered in mold [as a result of the energy conservation directive]. I'm sure it spurred the sale of the tapes. They couldn't store them properly, so sell them and get some money out of them or throw them in the trash.
The press release also describes the tapes as "unrestored, unenhanced, and unremastered." Does that mean that other period tapes of the moon walk have suffered that fate? Yes. When NASA discovered the slow-scan tapes had been erased, they decided to use other footage for the 40th anniversary. That footage was made sharper, crisper, more viewable. But once you restore something, you change it. It's no longer in its original condition, and that has an impact from an artifactual and a value standpoint. Everything about these tapes is original, untouched, and unenhanced. I sat and watched every second of every reel. It's exactly what mission control saw as it was happening.
Ok, so we've established that NASA had no reason to believe they were giving away a gem when they consigned these tapes to auction, but this isn't the first time that the government has unwittingly or accidentally sold a priceless artifact of the space race. Why does this keep happening? You've got to remember what NASA is and what its purpose is. They're engineers. Not archivists. Not librarians. If you want archivists, there's a specific degree and training you need. They have done their best to archive material, but after all, it's a government agency, and it's not funded as much as it could be. They're not a museum. They're a space agency. If they hired someone to oversee all their artifacts before they go into a GSA auction, that'd be great.
But they'd need more than one person to do that… They'd have to have an army. People make a living out of paying attention to these sales. It's impossible to go over every item to make sure it's not super-valuable. The amount of research we did on this…
How long did it take you to research this lot? Days? I couldn't even quantify it in days.
Because you're picking it up and putting it down… And discussing, and reading books and articles, and watching videos, and talking to colleagues, and scratching my head. It does take quite a lot of time. We put quite a lot of thought into it. It's very much a team effort.
So Gary George bought the lot, which contained over 1,000 videotapes, for $217.77 in 1976, and he could have sold any one of those tapes for $200 at the time. That was exactly what he was doing. He was an intern at NASA, and a lot of interns, for fun, would go to government surplus auctions. George said he bought himself a sports car with the money he made. They were guys in their twenties, being entrepreneurial. He hit the jackpot, but he didn't realize it at first.
When did George find the trio of tapes within the larger group? He filled three U-Haul trucks [with tapes] and stored them in his parents' garage. He sold them as quickly as he could. It was his dad who said, "Those tapes say 'Apollo 11 EVA July 20 1969' on them. Maybe you should keep them." His dad really saved those tapes. George was a young guy. He was going to resell them.
I guess George thought NASA couldn't have done something so silly as to sell tapes that record the first moon walk? Yeah. At that point, he held onto them, close to when he bought them. It was not until 2006 or 2007, when NASA was hunting for the slow-scan tapes, that he saw them and thought, "Gee, maybe I have something that's important."
When did you and your colleagues at Sotheby's learn about the tapes? George reached out to us recently, in 2018.
I've heard tell of badly stored nitrate films from the silent era bursting into flame. Do these tapes pose a similar risk? Luckily, that's not an issue here. I think post-1965, most were recorded using safety film. It will eventually degrade, but it is in remarkable condition. [When I brought it to an engineer who owned a device that could play it,] I didn't tell them what it was. They spontaneously said, "Wow." They kept remarking on the quality and how sharp the image was. Just by looking, they were able to tell me the tape was an original–I didn't tell them it was an original. I was just a weird lady who came into the office with tapes she wanted to play.
Will the winning bidder need to hunt down a period AMPEX videotape device to watch these reels? No. They've been digitized in a super-high-resolution manner and saved onto a one-terabyte hard drive and a thumb drive. You can watch the hard drive or the thumb drive and keep the reels as artifacts. It's kind of like having the manuscript, a first edition, and a paperback of the same book. You read the paperback, and the manuscript and the first edition stay on the shelf. I always bring it back to books…
I apologize if this is a silly question, but did NASA shoot these videos in black and white? Not that that makes much difference on the lunar surface, which is pretty close to black-and-white as it is. They're in both. In the opening footage, you see engineers in mission control, and that's in color. On the lunar surface, it's black and white. [It might have been] because they didn't have the capability to broadcast color from the moon, and because most people had black and white televisions [in 1969].
And to clarify–these are NOT three reels from the missing 45. These are separate and different yes? They are not three from the 45, but they represent what's on the 45 reels. This is the complete EVA [extra-vehicular activity]. I can only imagine what the quality would have been if they'd taken up the 45 reels. Maybe there was a little extra, but who knows? The 45 reels have been erased. But the content should be the same.
Again, apologies for what might be a silly question, but I feel I should clarify–the winner gets the physical things in the lot, and does not receive copyright or control over the images shown on the three reels, yes? We're just selling the tapes themselves as artifacts. The content is in the public domain. There is no copyright. If you want to make and sell t-shirts [with these images], you've got to ask permission [from NASA].
Is there anything about these tapes that doesn't come across in the photos? For example, how heavy are they? They are very heavy. Each reel weighs about 15 pounds. They were too heavy for one person to carry all three on the airline.
It hadn't occurred to me that you had to fly the tapes to New York. How did that work? It was complicated to get them on the plane. At security, they could have been demagnetized, because they're magnetic tapes. We had to flag them for special screening, so they weren't brought anywhere near magnetic machines. I viewed them on the East coast to be sure they didn't get erased between the West coast and getting here.
It must have been a relief to watch the tapes and realize they'd arrived safely. It was a tense moment, watching the engineer spool it up on the machine. It was nerve-wracking. But I realized what a nerd I really am–it started, and I narrated it. I really know this mission!
Why will this lot stick in your memory? When I watched the tapes, I was surprised, because I started tearing up. The engineer spooling the tapes started tearing up. His wife started tearing up. It has such an impact on people. I've sold a lot of cool things that flew to the moon, but this represents what all that effort was for. This is the primary witness to the moment we worked for. It really is representative of man's greatest achievement. It's the original artifact from the agency that made it possible. It all comes back to the moments captured on these tapes.
How to bid: The trio of Apollo 11 videotape recordings is lot 104 in the Space Exploration sale taking place at Sotheby's New York on July 20, 2019 (of course).
Sotheby's is on Twitter and Instagram.
Text is copyright Sheila Gibson Stoodley. Images are courtesy of Sotheby's.
Cassandra Hatton has appeared on The Hot Bid before, talking about Richard Feynman's Nobel Prize and an Apollo 13 flight plan.
In a NASA story about the search for the slow-scan tapes that mentions this trio of videotapes, the agency states, "If the tapes are as described in the sale material, they are 2-inch videotapes recorded in Houston from the video that had been converted to a format that could be broadcast over commercial television and contain no material that hasn't been preserved at NASA."
Patriotic Pop Culture Record Timepieces Tools Uncategorized July 8, 2019 July 3, 2019
What you see: The Bulova chronograph that astronaut David Scott wore on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 15 mission. RR Auction sold it in October 2015 for $1.6 million against an estimate of $750,000. It set a then-record for an Apollo item, a record for an item owned and directly consigned by an astronaut, a record for a timepiece used on the lunar surface, a record for any Bulova watch, and a RR Auction house record for the most expensive lot that it has handled.
The expert: Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction.
The Apollo astronauts relied on government-issued Omega Speedmaster chronographs. How did Scott convince NASA to let him use the Bulova instead? He didn't. Scott and the others are engineers, responsible for the lives of their crews. They brought backups. Bulova gave him the watch and a stopwatch, which we also sold. The company was U.S.-owned at the time. They tried very hard to get the chronograph contract from NASA. Bulova's then-boss, Omar Bradley, had said, "How can we put boys on the moon wearing foreign-made watches?" During the second EVA [A NASA acronym that stands for "extravehicular activity," which describes anything an astronaut does outside a spacecraft that has left the Earth], he noticed that the crystal on his Omega Speedmaster was gone. We don't know why [it went missing] but the heat emanating from the sun may have heated to a temperature that had it pop off. Scott took the Omega off the strap and replaced it with the Bulova. It was a prototype watch. He brought it as a backup, with no promises to the Bulova company that he would use it.
The Bulova was a prototype? It was the prototype they made to pitch to NASA on the contract that Omega got. They developed it to go to the moon, but it was never put into production. Only Dave, the [spacecraft] commander, had a Bulova backup. I don't think the others [his two crewmates] were approached by the Bulova company.
Could you talk for a bit about why the astronauts needed these watches, and how they relied on them? They all needed wristwatches. Dave basically used it to keep track of the elapsed time on the consumables used. We included a quote from Scott in the catalog: "Time is of the essence during human lunar expeditions–and exploration time on the surface is limited by the oxygen and water (for cooling) we can carry in our backpacks… knowledge of precise time remaining was essential."
How long did Scott wear the Bulova on the lunar surface? The third EVA was four hours, 49 minutes, and 50 seconds. [Livingston relayed these numbers from memory, with complete fluency.] What was really cool about the watch was he drove the lunar rover while wearing it. He was the first to drive on the moon, and the watch stood up to that, obviously. It was very much exposed to lunar material. You can see the scratches on the bezel.
Was Scott wearing the watch when he repeated Galileo's experiment on the lunar surface, dropping the hammer and the feather and proving they'd hit the ground at the same time? Yes, but he didn't actually use the watch. Each arm was holding out an item, and he didn't need the timer to see them hit the surface. They hit at the same time. It was apparent. [Laughs] But he wore the watch when he did it. The significance of this particular watch on his arm when he did it was profound to us.
Did the watch and the strap have lunar dust on it? It certainly had remnants of lunar material when I saw it, and obvious damage to the crystal from the lunar surface.
The strap as well? Yes, it was apparent that lunar material was on it when I got it. There are shots of Dave wearing the watch during splashdown [the term for when a spacecraft makes its return landing in the ocean; the astronauts disembark into a dinghy], so it may have been in the ocean. [RR Auction created a dedicated catalog for Scott's Bulova. You can see a period photo of a post-splashdown Scott, his watch clearly visible on his wrist, on pages 14-15.] There is a bit of rust on the watch. I saw lunar dust on it. It wasn't covered. There wasn't tons of it. But it certainly had it.
What did Scott do with the watch after the Apollo 15 mission? He put it into a baggie and kept it in storage for 40 years until he sent it to us.
Does the watch have inherent value? Would it be worth something even if it hadn't gone to the moon on Scott's wrist? It sounds like it might, given that it was a prototype designed to win a NASA contract. Even if it never went to the moon, it has collectible value. Interestingly, when I approached Bulova and said I had Dave's Bulova, which he wore on the moon, they didn't believe me.
How did you convince Bulova of your claim? Dave had retained documents from Bulova. I had source material that didn't exist in their archives of Omar Bradley talking about the watch and getting the contract. Then they believed me. [Laughs]
You set an estimate of $750,000. How did you come up with that number? We based it on other artifacts that we had sold for Dave Scott. We sold his rotational hand controller for a similar price, $610,000, and we sold his cuff checklist for $364,000. We felt it was the most important thing that he had in his collection. We recognized that it was the only watch that's been on the lunar surface that you could own. The government still retains all of the Omega watches. Anything that's been on the lunar surface has immense value because it's critical to the mission. This certainly was.
I imagine there was cross-competition for this between watch collectors and space memorabilia collectors. That was exactly what happened. As it got higher, we had dueling collectors of Apollo [material] and watches. They understood the significance of the item. Not only was it on the surface, it was a watch. It crossed over, certainly.
Did you try it on? I did not. The lunar strap had to fit on the space suit, so it was quite long. I used gloves to handle it. I do own a Bulova chronograph replica because it is my favorite thing.
Do you wear the Bulova replica every day? Yeah! [laughs]
How did you convince Scott to consign the watch? We knew it existed. It was rumored in the collecting community that he wore it on the EVA. Once he became a client, it did take some effort for him to consign it, but he's glad he did. It wasn't the first thing out of storage. We built a relationship with him, and then he said, "I have this watch…"
Does the watch still work? From the time I got it to the time I sold it, it had a little life in it. Somehow, it showed us it still worked. [Between Scott taking the scouting photos of the watch and Livingston receiving the watch, the hands advanced, but it's not clear when they briefly winked to life.] I wouldn't wind it. Usually with a watch, you clean it. This watch, you don't want to clean it. It's just too important.
What was the auction like? We sold it live at our gallery in Boston. All of us worked really hard on the auction. It was a really intense moment, adrenalin pumping. When we exceeded our client's expectations, it was unbelievable. If I recall correctly, there were five initial bidders. The lot took eight or nine minutes.
Was Scott there in the sale room? No, but he was listening through a computer. We got his reaction at the time. He was very generous and kind to everyone who worked on the auction. He made it about our staff and the auction. I think he understood the importance of getting the object in the hands of a collector who will take care of it. I think that's what he cares about.
Were you surprised that it sold for $1.6 million? You know, our expectations were $750,000. It was thrilling for it to get to a $1 million bid and keep going [laughs loudly]. That was unbelievable. It was an achievement for us. We don't sell fine art. We don't have Banksy shredding his work on our walls. [laughs]
Why will this piece stick in your memory? It crosses so many lines. It's history. It was important to the mission. It's a great story. There's incredible photographic provenance [evidence]. It comes right from him. It tells so many stories of the mission. It has an emotional resonance with me on so many levels. And it went to the moon! [laughs] And came back!
Text is copyright Sheila Gibson Stoodley. Images are courtesy of RR Auction.
In case you missed it above, here's the link to the digital version of the dedicated catalog that RR Auctions produced for the Bulova chronograph.
And in case you missed it above, here's video of Dave Scott performing Galileo's gravity experiment on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 15 mission.
And here's a short video segment on the sale of the watch.
Livingston spoke to The Hot Bid previously about Dave Scott's Apollo 17-flown Robbins medal and spoke in 2017 about a ring that Clyde Barrow made in prison to give to his girlfriend, Bonnie Parker.
SOLD! The First Lady Jackie Kennedy-Oleg Cassini Archive Sold for (Scroll Down to See)
Artifacts Collectibles Decorative Arts Illustrations Political Memorabilia Pop Culture Tools July 3, 2019 July 3, 2019
Update: The Oleg Cassini-First Lady Jackie Kennedy archive sold for $3,125.
What you see: An image from an archive of more than 40 original drawings, letters, clippings, and other materials from the early 1960s that show how designer Oleg Cassini and his team developed fashions for First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Doyle estimates it at $4,000 to $6,000.
The expert: Peter Costanzo, senior vice president at Doyle as well as its executive director for books, autographs, and photographs; coins, bank notes, and postage stamps; and estate and appraisal services.
How rare is it for something like this archive to survive? Is there anything similar between the First Lady and another fashion designer that dates to the White House years? It's hard for me to say. It is a special archive. It's Oleg Cassini's workroom archive, and it shows a working relationship. It was ephemeral then, and it's ephemeral now. The clothes were the final goal. This was how they did it in the analog age, by drawing everything out. They sat with Mrs. Kennedy and homed in on what she needed for her appearances and her events. Cassini made over 300 pieces for Mrs. Kennedy.
Wow, so he was really her go-to guy. Yes.
How did this archive survive? The archives usually remain with the fashion houses if they're not discarded. This is a rare opportunity because material like this is seldom on the market.
What does this archive reveal about the working relationship between the First Lady and Cassini's team? Mrs. Kennedy was highly involved in the process. She provided ideas and made her own drawings. She went through fashion magazines and newspapers and noted what she liked and didn't like, and they would react to it. She would draw [fashion sketches] and write little comments on fabrics she liked and didn't like. And she would comment on accessories–this needs a bag or a coat to match. The lot includes contact sheets–Cassini had models that wore Mrs. Kennedy's size. She would annotate the pictures of the models. She's very honest in her comments to him and very forthcoming. She felt very comfortable in the relationship and felt it went very well.
Fashion drawings by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, from lot 22 in the Doyle auction.
Are you aware of any other archive that's come to auction that contains fashion drawings in Mrs. Kennedy's own hand? We sold a similar fashion archive a few years ago. [It sold in November 2017 for $11,875.] It's related to the same workshop, from the same period, and was retained by one of the workshop employees at the time. This is similar.
And Cassini stored it all this time? It comes directly from his estate. It was in his home in Oyster Bay, New York.
What was Jacqueline Kennedy's relationship with Oleg Cassini like? It was extremely intimate. He was the one putting clothes on her back when she was the most-photographed woman on the planet. It has to be considered a collaboration with a wonderful public figure who embraced and acknowledged her role. I think that's what we see with Cassini and Mrs. Kennedy.
And we know this archive stops in 1962 because… that's the latest-dated item in it? I have something equally of note in the sale, but selling separately: Lot 14, a detailed workroom ledger of the Kennedy White House years. I know the record book starts in 1961. Page 14 is dated March 1963. The last entry before the assassination is November 13, 1963. There's something somewhat ominous [mentioned in the ledger]–a pink costume dress and jacket. I think it's poignant that the last entry before the assassination ends with a pink item.
What condition is the archive in? I think it's in very good condition from the time of use until now. In the time it was used, it was handled, folded, mailed, and written on. There are some handling creases and torn corners, but it's very well-preserved overall. The handling is original with its use.
Another fashion drawing by the First Lady, with handwritten annotations.
What is it like to handle this material? It puts you in the moment with them. You feel like you're in the room–that's been my experience. It's wonderful to feel like you're in a workroom with Oleg Cassini and Mrs. Kennedy as they produced clothing that became iconic. The designs really became emblematic of the beginning of the 1960s–the Jet Set era, the Jackie look.
Why will this lot stick in your memory? Because it's highly primary material. It's a rare opportunity to engage with high-quality First Lady material, let alone the White House years known as Camelot, which doesn't seem to recede from memory at all. It's remarkable to view these items. That's why they'll stick with me.
How to bid: The Cassini-Kennedy archive is lot 22 in The Estate of Oleg Cassini, a sale taking place at Doyle on June 27, 2019.
Text is copyright Sheila Gibson Stoodley. Images are courtesy of Doyle.
Doyle is on Twitter and Instagram.
SOLD! Rennert's Gallery Sold the Iconic Steinlen Cat Poster with Two Progressive Prints for (Scroll Down to See)
Posters Tools June 28, 2019 July 3, 2019
Update: The 1894 Steinlen cat poster, offered with two progressive prints, sold for $5,000.
What you see: An 1894 poster by Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, advertising a show of his work at the Bodiniére gallery. It also includes two progressive prints of the lithographic poster (scroll down to see them). Rennert's Gallery estimates the group at $14,000 to $17,000.
The expert: Jack Rennert of Rennert's Gallery.
I realize to some extent that all posters are advertisements for an artist's skills, but how unusual is it to see a poster as literal as this one, which advertises Steinlen's first gallery show in Paris? He did this for an exhibition at Bodiniére. It's not a reproduction of a poster or a painting [in the show]. It's an actual design, integrated with text, and he designed the text. It's completely his poster.
What does it say about him that when choosing the image for this poster–which is intended to lure people to the gallery to buy his artworks–he chose to depict cats? Cats are one of his most iconic and popular images. He loved cats, and had a house full of them. People say you could tell where he lived within five blocks of his house.
The lot notes describe the pair shown on the poster as "his cats." Might we know which of his cats modeled for this? Did they have names? Or were these imaginary cats? He had dozens of stray cats that he brought into his home in Paris. He didn't need to imagine them. He had his models right there in his home. Lot 450, the following lot, is maybe his most famous poster of all, and it has his daughter, Colette, and three cats. It was for sterilized milk. She's testing it before she gives it to them. Of the three cats, the two at the front could be the same two in the Bodiniére exhibit poster. He did them two years apart.
Are the cats in the Bodiniére exhibition poster shown at around life size? The poster is 32 inches wide by 23 inches high, so yeah, pretty much life size. They take up half the entire image of the poster.
The poster is horizontal. Is that unusual for this era? Yes. Ninety percent of the posters of the 1890s were vertical posters, meant to go on vertical spaces, like hoardings. It could have been that this Bodiniére exhibit poster was never meant to be an outdoor advertisement. It could have been in store windows.
Do I sense Japanese influence here? It kind of reminds me of Japanese woodcuts. Japanese art was very popular and influential with many artists in the 1890s, especially in Paris. You can see some of that in the treatment here, especially in the coloring of the cats. But I wouldn't put too much stock in that. This is Steinlen and his way of drawing.
Do we have any notion of how many of these posters were printed, and how many survive? We don't know, and I've spent a lifetime trying to find out. I would guess that since it was a one-time exhibit, for one month, in one place and one city, I don't think he would have had more than 200 or 300 copies made. There was no need for more.
This example of the poster comes with two progressive prints of the design, which show lithographic color passes. How do the prints give insight into how the poster was made? It's stone lithography, so first, they'd do just the gray area, then overprint it with black in a few areas, giving it a solid, deep black look. The third color plate is red, which gives a nice color to the cat and the lettering. It's unusual to show the final product and how it was arrived at.
Do we have any idea how this example of the poster survived with two related progressive prints? I'd say it's more likely that it came from the archive of Charles Verneau, his favorite printer. There's no reason for someone outside of a printing plant to have them. Every now and then you do see progressive prints for a poster, and inevitably, they come from printers' storage. They're rare.
How many times have you handled the Steinlen Bodiniére Exposition poster? Over the last 50 years, I've handled it ten to 12 times.
And how rare is it to see any poster with progressive prints, never mind a poster as iconic as this Steinlen? It's extremely rare. Only real passionate poster collectors care enough to even want it. There's nothing pretty about them. They're incomplete works. But they appreciate seeing what went into the final [lithographic] stone.
In your 50 years in the business, how often have you seen a poster with progressive prints come up? I've probably had a couple dozen instances of that. Once every two or three years, I get a series.
So the Steinlen plus progressive prints will be of more interest to a museum or an institution? Absolutely. I expect museums, galleries, and foundations to have a special interest in them.
How did the presence of the progressive prints affect the estimate? It obviously increases it, but not by a hell of a lot. The poster often sells for $10,000. I estimated this in the $14,000 to $17,000 range because of the prints.
What's the world auction record for this Steinlen poster? Was it set with you? The highest at our auctions was $9,200 in 2006. [This seems to be the world record, not just a house record.]
What makes this a successful poster? Why does it still sell for thousands of dollars more than a century after it was printed? It's very appealing. It catches your attention. Cat people have an additional reason to be enamored of it. It's one of the favorite posters by one of the most famous poster artists of the period. It was an important exhibition for him. It established him in the artistic community.
So the 1894 show did well? It was a successful show for him. He sold all his works. I won't say it was because of the poster, but maybe it takes some of the credit.
How to bid: The 1894 Steinlen Bodiniére Exposition poster is lot 449 in the PAI-LXXVIII: Rare Posters auction taking place at Rennert's Gallery on June 23, 2019.
Rennert's Gallery is on Instagram and Twitter.
Text is copyright Sheila Gibson Stoodley. Image is courtesy of Rennert's Gallery.
WOW! Heritage Auctions Sold That Abraham Lincoln Parade Lantern for (Scroll Down to See)
Political Memorabilia Tools June 26, 2019 July 3, 2019
Update: Heritage Auctions sold the Abraham Lincoln parade lantern for $22,500.
What you see: A glass and tin Abraham Lincoln parade lantern, dating to the 1860s. While Heritage Auctions has not given it an official estimate, bidding opened at $7,500.
The expert: Tom Slater, director of Americana auctions for Heritage Auctions.
How popular were political torchlight parades in the 19th century? In the 19th century, obviously, they didn't have the communications media we have today. It was important to promote candidates, and torchlight parades were a popular way to do that. They were big events, and integral to politics from 1830 to about 1880 or 1890.
And they fade away after electricity begins to spread? Sure. It's not coincidental that you see them until the 1890s.
How rare are these lanterns, period, never mind those that depict Abraham Lincoln? I've only seen one, two, or three examples of each type. It's hard to say how many of them there were.
How many people in a parade would have had a lantern as fancy as this one? Multiple people carried torches on the ends of poles. Something like this, there would have been fewer to begin with. They're really, really rare. We don't really have evidence if [paraders carried] multiples of this exact type. They heyday of tin and glass lamps is from 1850 to 1872.
So, one person might have had the privilege of carrying this lantern, and the rest might have had more mundane lanterns? It could very well be. It would have been like with a candle. There's a fitting in the bottom for one.
Is the pole original? It's the original tin pole. It would have extended a couple of inches beyond what you see in the pictures to fit into a wooden pole.
What's that thing on the top that looks like an upside-down cupcake wrapper? It's a vent. Heat would vent from the candle.
Are the printed paper Lincoln and eagle-with-shield images sandwiched between clear glass? The glass is outside, protecting the paper, which adheres to the reverse of the glass. There's deterioration around the perimeter, which is not that surprising.
Yes, what kind of condition is the lantern in? And what does it mean to talk about condition when maybe three examples survive? You could use the term "excellent" if you wanted to. It's all there–all four glass panels, and the image is strong. It's all there. There's as much as you could ask for from a lantern.
So it has the ideal amount of wear? If it looked like it was made yesterday, it wouldn't be interesting to me. This has the perfect look. You can see immediately that it's old. You can relate it to something that happened 150 years ago.
Why are two of the four panels colored red and blue? To make it colorful, and make a better, colorful display. There's no symbolic significance. You see red and blue in a lot of political material.
Have you tried putting an LED light in it to get a notion of what it looked like all lit up? That would be ideal. There's always a risk that a candle could fall over and set the paper on fire. Some have to be backlit [to get a notion of what they're like] but in this case, as long as there's daylight, you can see the image very clearly. You don't need a light inside to make it present better.
Do we know what company might have made the lantern? We don't.
But it wasn't made by an enthusiastic individual? It's definitely manufactured, with paper inserts sized to fit that particular lantern. It's a complete manufactured unit. It was almost certainly made in New England.
Would Lincoln's campaign have provided the lantern to paraders? We're sure it didn't come from a central source. Political parties were much more local in those days. There was probably a company you could order it from, but it was not provided from above.
How on earth did something this fragile survive so well for so long? The vast majority of lanterns did not survive. People didn't think they were important to save. Generally, these were disposable, not made as souvenirs to be kept. They served a purpose. But there's no specific information on how, when, and where [this one survived].
Have you seen the other two surviving Lincoln lanterns? How does this one compare to them? We're just guessing there might be three. Personally, I've never seen another. I can guarantee there's not five.
This lantern is shown on page 274 of Arthur Schlessinger Jr.'s book Running for President: The Candidates and Their Images 1789-1896. How, if at all, does that affect the lantern's value? It definitely adds something. It's considered one of the definitive reference books on political memorabilia. Being chosen to illustrate the book adds cachet. I'm not sure it adds dollar value, but it adds cachet.
What is it like in person? It's arresting. It communicates the flavor of the times. It's a very evocative piece, very pleasing to look at.
Why will it stick in your memory? It's a particularly rare and desirable type of item. You don't see it very often. And it's Lincoln. Everybody loves Lincoln. Lincoln is magic because of his historic nature–a wartime president, maybe the greatest president, and he was assassinated at the end of the war. We get bids on Lincoln items from people who aren't political collectors.
How to bid: The Lincoln lantern is lot #36163 in The David and Janice Frent Collection of Presidential and Political Americana, Part V, taking place at Heritage Auctions June 22 and June 23, 2019.
Heritage Auctions is on Twitter and Instagram.
Text is copyright Sheila Gibson Stoodley. Image is courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
The Making of a First Lady: Oleg Cassini's Archive of White House-era Jacqueline Kennedy Material Could Command $6,000 at Doyle
Artifacts Collectibles Decorative Arts Illustrations Political Memorabilia Pop Culture Tools June 24, 2019 July 3, 2019