Winter 2016

Fig. 7: The Santa Claus figure displayed in the apartment of Elizabeth Robb, New York City, ca. 1950. Photograph courtesy of a Robb family descendant. Fig. 6: Samuel, Agnes, and Elizabeth Wilson Robb, June 1905. The Frederick and Mary Fried Folk Arts Archives, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. snow accumulated on Santa’s boots, coat, and cap. Unlike the majority of Robb’s commercial figures that were displayed out of doors and weathered over time, the painted surfaces of the Santa Claus figure are nearly pristine. A generation of younger Robb cousins regarded their elderly maiden aunt Elizabeth as a grandmotherly figure who always left envelopes with money for them tucked into the open sack on Santa’s back at Christmastime. In 1966, Elizabeth Robb sold Fried her Santa Claus for $300. She inscribed the underside of the base: “THIS IS THE LAST FIGURE MADE BY SAMUEL A. ROBB IN 1923 SIGNED ELIZABETH W. ROBB MAY 16, 1966.” In 1983, Fried placed it at auction where it sold to Ralph O. Esmerian for $44,000, and most recently in a sale of his collection at record price to a private collector. 7 Since leaving Elzabeth’s hands, the figure has been in major museums, exhibitions and seminal reference books where it has been transformed from a Christmas gift to a recognized icon of American folk art. 8 David A. Schorsch is a nationally recognized expert in the field of American antiques and folk art. He and his business partner maintain a gallery in Woodbury, Connecticut, David A. Schorsch~Eileen M. Smiles American Antiques. 1. In the Sotheby’s auction of the Ralph Esmerian collection, January 25, 2014. The previous auction record price for a trade figure was $747,000 for an Indian Princess sold by Guyette and Deeter, Easton, Md, November 6–7, 2013. In the private market, important tobacconist figures with original paint have traded at prices in excess of one million dollars. 2. The Frederick and Mary Fried research archives were donated to The Smithsonian Institution and Columbia University Library. 3. Frederick Fried, Artists in Wood, American Carvers of Cigar Store Indians, Show Figures, and Circus Wagons (New York: Bramhill House, 1970), 193– 225. 4. See Fried, Artists in Wood, and Ralph Sessions, The Shipcarver’s Art, Figureheads and Cigar Store Indians In Nineteenth Century America (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005). 5. Lisa Grunwald, “Avenue Arts/American Folk Art, Fred Fried’s Amusement Park Art,” Avenue Magazine (June 1982): 132. 6. Robb likely modeled his Santa Claus after images depicted in early twentieth-century holiday cards, advertising and magazine covers. By the time of the First World War this iconic representation of the jolly Santa Claus wearing the familiar white fur trimmed cap and matching red suit was fully established in our national consciousness. This now familiar rendition is frequently identified as the Coca Cola Santa. So impactful was this advertising campaign that Coca Cola adopted the colors red and white in its subsequent branding. Feather trees were a form of artificial Christmas trees that originated in Germany in the late 19th century, born out of a growing environmental concern over deforestation. Within twenty years feather trees became popular in the United States and were offered seasonally through department stores and catalogs. 7. Sold by Fried “Important American Furniture, Folk Art and Related Decorative Arts,” Sotheby Parke Bernet, October 21–22, 1983, lot 11, $44,000; Sold by Esmerian, “Visual; Grace: Important American Folk Art from the Collection of Ralph O. Esmerian,” Sotheby’s, January 25, 2014, lot 664, $875,000; purchased for a private collector by David A. Schorsch and Eileen M. Smiles. 8. The figure was exhibited at the American Folk Art Museum, in The Image Business: Shop and Cigar Figures in America, 1997–1998; American Radiance, The Ralph Esmerian Gift to The American Folk Art Museum, 2001–2002, and at The South Street Seaport Museum, in Compass: Folk Art in Four Directions, 2012. Winter 172 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com