1957 & 1964 Broadway Costume Sketches
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GUEST:
I bought this at a, an auction, a charity auction, in, uh, the late '80s, early '90s, and this one was, uh, also in a charity auction about five years ago. I know I paid $500 for this. I'm not sure about that, but I would guess about $1,500.
APPRAISER:
What drew you to these?
GUEST:
Well, when I was 11, my grandmother took me to the first film showing of The King and I, and I fell in love with the American musical. And so, I've always been interested in acquiring part of its history, and, uh, these are sort of iconic pieces.
APPRAISER:
What we have here next to me is a costume sketch by Irene Sharaff of Chita Rivera, who portrayed Anita, both in the 1957 West Side Story Broadway debut and the West End debut of the play in London. And your side, we have, obviously, Carol Channing, in probably her most famous role, from the 1964 original production of Hello, Dolly! And this one's by Freddy Wittop. These are pretty great productions to have pieces from, because obviously, they're both award-winning. This one was done by Irene Sharaff, a very famous costume designer. She was nominated for best costume design on this, but didn't win. And that one, Freddy Wittop, he actually did win the award for best costume design for Hello, Dolly! Hello, Dolly! won ten of their 11 Tony nominations, which actually was a record that held for 37 years. So, this is really one of the most famous musicals, I think, also having Academy Award- winning film made out of it, and this role really was Carol Channing.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
She not only did the original production in '64, she did a 1995 revival, which is extraordinary, all those years later. She was still able to carry that show. And sadly, we obviously lost her in January of 2019.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
The West Side Story piece in front of me, we see that Chita Rivera has signed the mat, and she's signed below this depiction of herself in her two primary costumes from the musical. The West Side Story piece is a gouache and ink on board. The Carol Channing is actually framed so that we can't see the edges to tell if that's board or paper. But it is also gouache. Each of these are signed by the costume designer. Sharaff has signed it and then also listed the name of the production, and listed "America," because these are the costumes that she would have worn during that most famous number. And the Carol Channing is also signed by the costume designer. And it's actually signed in paint. When you brought them up, the first thing I think about with value is, in the marketplace, we generally don't see many Broadway pieces as compared to Hollywood pieces, the film costumes. And they traditionally don't sell as well as the film costume sketches for these very famous roles. But, when you look at these, you have to look at who is portrayed, what's the production, is it the original production, what's the character, how visually desirable are they. And both of these tick every single box you could possibly hope to tick, because they're both really important shows. They're both visually appealing. I think your, your Carol Channing is probably the most visually impactful here. A lot of times, when there are charity auctions, the whole point is actually to overpay for things.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
You're there to support a charity. It's a little bit of a good news, bad news on this. This one, you probably paid closer to what it is worth now. But years ago, when you, when you bought it back then, you probably overpaid for it just a little bit. Now it probably has caught up to where you're at, and the auction estimate would probably be $2,000 to $3,000.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
On the Carol Channing, I'm very conservative in this, because I think the fact that she just passed away, I anticipate that the market for her is about to shift, and I would expect there'll be more pieces of hers in the market, and so we'll have more data to go by. Right now, I would conservatively estimate it at $2,000 to $3,000, as well. But I expect that that would do better if it came up, because it's just such a great, striking piece.
GUEST:
That's great. But I really didn't buy them as an investment, I bought them because I like the work.
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