$55,000
Estimate: $30,000 - $50,000
American Art & Pennsylvania Impressionists
Auction: December 8, 2019 2:00:00 PM EDT
Pencil signed 'Norman/Rockwell' bottom right, oil on paper laid down to heavy paper
Image size: 13 7/8 x 10 3/4 in. (35.2 x 27.3cm)
Sheet size: 15 x 11 5/8 in. (38.1 x 29.5cm)
Provenance: Sotheby's, New York, sale of November 29, 2006, lot 188
Acquired directly from the above sale.
Private Collection, Virginia.
NOTE:
The present work served as the study for the Saturday Evening Post cover of March 21, 1942. Reportedly, the artist's middle son Tommy had to be bribed for this project, where he acts as the mischief-maker going through his sister's diary, hidden among all the frills overflowing from the vanity. The artist did not have a daughter and most likely used a neighbor's home for the setting of this painting, possibly that of former Rockwell model Ann Morgan Baker, who contributed to the famed Missing Tooth and later candidly recalled in an interview that the artist's used to call her mother early in the morning, and command: "Don't make the beds. I want to come and look at some messy rooms." The final version of this oil (now in a Private Collection) is among Norman Rockwell's most important successes, a welcome humorous scene at a time when most of the 1942 Post covers were war-related.