Lot Essay
During the last half of the 19th century, figurehead ship carvers discouraged by the technological development of the steamship and the demise of the demand for these forms, turned toward the manufacturing of cigar store figures. While Indians were the popular forms employed to represent the wares of a tobacconists, other figures emerged which represented foreigners, every day life, popular folklore and history, and included turks, baseball players, Sultans, Scottish highlanders, and blackamoors.
The turk offered here closely resembles the carving of a turk, attributed to Samuel A. Robb and illustrated in Frederick Fried, Artists in Wood: American Carvers of Cigar Store Indians, Show Figures and Circus Wagons (New York, 1970) p. 228, fig. 212. Samuel A. Robb (1851-1928) apprenticed with both Thomas V. Brooks and William Demuth before opening his own shop at 195 Canal Street in 1876. An advertisement in Lain's Brooklyn directory in 1881 attests to Samuel Robb's flourishing workshop where carvers such as Thomas V. White and Charles Robb were employed and where not only cigar store figures were produced but also show figures and trade signs. Robb's entry into the business and superb quality stole business away form other established workshops forcing many to relocate or shut down. Robb acquired large commissions for wagon sides and circus figures from Adam Forepaugh and Barnum, Bailey & Hutchinson. Two page boys made in 1883 for the Barnum, Bailey and Hutchinson circus and presently located at the Shelburne Museum, closely resemble the carving on the turk offered here, possibly dating the turk to that year. The two page boys are illustrated in Fried, p. 202, fig. 185. A closely related unattributed turk located in the Bucks County Historical Society illustrated in A.W. Prendergast and W. Potter Ware, Cigar Store Figures in American Folk Art (Sewanee, Tennessee, 1953) p.12.
The turk offered here closely resembles the carving of a turk, attributed to Samuel A. Robb and illustrated in Frederick Fried, Artists in Wood: American Carvers of Cigar Store Indians, Show Figures and Circus Wagons (New York, 1970) p. 228, fig. 212. Samuel A. Robb (1851-1928) apprenticed with both Thomas V. Brooks and William Demuth before opening his own shop at 195 Canal Street in 1876. An advertisement in Lain's Brooklyn directory in 1881 attests to Samuel Robb's flourishing workshop where carvers such as Thomas V. White and Charles Robb were employed and where not only cigar store figures were produced but also show figures and trade signs. Robb's entry into the business and superb quality stole business away form other established workshops forcing many to relocate or shut down. Robb acquired large commissions for wagon sides and circus figures from Adam Forepaugh and Barnum, Bailey & Hutchinson. Two page boys made in 1883 for the Barnum, Bailey and Hutchinson circus and presently located at the Shelburne Museum, closely resemble the carving on the turk offered here, possibly dating the turk to that year. The two page boys are illustrated in Fried, p. 202, fig. 185. A closely related unattributed turk located in the Bucks County Historical Society illustrated in A.W. Prendergast and W. Potter Ware, Cigar Store Figures in American Folk Art (Sewanee, Tennessee, 1953) p.12.