Charles Schreyvogel Bronze Sculpture, ca. 1903
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GUEST:
This sculpture came to my husband from his mother. And his mother's father had been given it as a gift by a patient of his. He was a physician in Philadelphia.
APPRAISER:
Well, it's a great sculpture. It's by an American artist. It's signed by Charles Schreyvogel. And it says "copyright 1903." So it's cast any time after 1903. He died in 1912, so it's definitely a lifetime cast. And it has a foundry mark of the Roman Bronze Works in New York. Roman Bronze was one of the leading foundries in America at this time. Charles Schreyvogel was contemporary with Frederic Remington. And Remington was the famous sculptor of cowboys and Indians. And he sort of overshadowed Schreyvogel, who painted similar Western scenes. What's wonderful about this is it actually has a title. It's called The Last Drop. This is a cavalry man and he's feeding his horse water. It's a wonderful, intimate kind of scene and it reflects how dependent the soldier was on his horse. Schreyvogel's studio was in Hoboken, New Jersey. He traveled out west to Colorado in 1893 and he actually observed cavalrymen, cowboys and Indians, and that's reflected in his work. But he actually went back to Hoboken to model these. He also was friendly with people who were in the Buffalo Bill shows. So he had experience from that. We have all the wonderful details of the saddle and the bridle. Here's the saddle bag, the roll. You have the stirrup here. What's also interesting is that there's a number underneath. Did you ever see this under...?
GUEST:
No, no.
APPRAISER:
Right over here is a number, 79. These were cast as people wanted them. And I looked through some of the auction records and I saw numbers going up to about 115, 120. Now, the actual original archives of the Roman Bronze Works are at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. And you might be able to contact them and somebody might be able to find out exactly when this was cast. Quite a number of these have shown up at auction in the last few years, and in May of 2010, one of these at auction brought $62,500.
GUEST:
My goodness.
APPRAISER:
A couple of years ago, one brought $96,000.
GUEST:
Oh, my.
APPRAISER:
So I would put an auction estimate of between $60,000 and $90,000.
GUEST:
That's amazing. Beyond my expectations. My mother-in-law would be very happy.
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