Inscribed Portrait Photograph
Sepia-toned; the image is approximately 10 x 13”, matted, framed and glazed (with UV glass); overall approximately 15 x 18 1/2”. Coward, seated in a silk robe at a grand piano has inscribed a light area of the background, “For Peter, With very great appreciation and affection. Noel Coward, 1931.” Signed by the photographer at the bottom “Vandamm, N.Y.” On the back of the picture Peter is identified as New Yorker illustrator and cartoonist Peter Arno. The photographer’s stamp on the verso notes the copyright and its exclusivity to Vanity Fair; a little surface cracking along one edge and with a small, hand-drawn patch (approximately 1 3/4 x 3/4”) replicating the curtain background and probably covering a puncture or stain; certainly in very good condition. A fine image and association of two successful, sophisticated, iconic figures of the era, likely inscribed by Coward during the New York run of his play Private Lives. As shattering as the Depression was for most people, it might have been Coward’s most successful decade, and hardly a writer or illustrator is more closely associated with the New Yorker in its early life than Arno. The photography studio, run by Florence Vandamm and her husband, was the most prominent catering to Broadway, notable for both theatrical scenes and portraits.
[Book #35778P]
Price: $650.00