'THE BABY BOOTLEGGER' A MARBLE, IVORY AND BRONZE SCULPTURE, 1924**

To commemorate the victory of winning the Gold Cup in 1924, Caleb Bragg commissioned Michel Karch to sculpt his remarkable speedboat the 'Baby Bootlegger.' Karch masterfully captured the thrust of the speeding boat slicing through the ocean in three contrasting shades of marble with bronze and ivory details. The legendary 'Baby Bootlegger' was designed by George Crouch and built for the wealthy Wall Street bachelor Caleb Bragg in 1924 at the extravagant sum of $34,000. In addition to being a'wizard of Wall Street' Bragg funded several Broadway musicals. Caleb Bragg was also the 70th licensed pilot in America who pioneered speed records in the air and on land before turning to the water. His record-breaking boat, the 'Baby Bootlegger' was considered 'the most beautiful wooden boat ever built' which embodied the ultra streamlined form evocative of the Modernist era. At the waterline 'Baby Bootlegger' has a standard transom but immediately above the water there is a long overhang that makes her an aerodynamic marvel and became the inspiration for the attenuated design of the famous Auburn 'Boat Tail' speedster. Its glistening thirty-foot pontoon of solid varnished mahogany punctuated with 60,000 brass screws and copper rivets was powered by a state-of-art Hispano Suiza aircraft engine (which produced 300 hp at 3,000 rpm) and completed her as the 'epitome of all speedboats.' In 1924 the 'Baby Bootlegger' won the Gold Cup race on a technicality but then went on to place first and win the Gold Cup at the important Long Island race of 1925.