Lot 220: TOMLIN, Bradley Walker (1899-1953). 24 sketches in a Victorian Jules Cuende

TOMLIN, Bradley Walker (1899-1953). 24 sketches in a Victorian Jules Cuendet music boxphoto album. New York, c.1940. A charming and curious music box containing 24 original sketches by Bradley Walker Tomlin. Given as a Christmas gift to the designer Sylvia Pedlar, a close friend, this kitschy object exemplifes the artist’s love of Biedermeier furniture and Victoriana. The humorous sketches occupy the empty photo mounts, comprising a motley family album of Tomlin’s caricatures—which are quite diferent from the Abstract Expressionism he is famous for. It still plays “Runaway Girl” and “Tell Me Pretty Marten.” This work was exhibited in a 1975 retrospective of the artist’s work at the Emily Lowe Gallery at Hofstra. Quarto album (306 x 236 x 108mm). 24 pencil sketches (145 x 100mm) in 14 leaves of card window-mounts with gilt decorative motifs, with a signed Christmas card laid in (sketches in excellent condition, some toning and wear to card mounts). A plastic music box with faux-wood pattern by Jules Cuendet, with a green image of two deer on front cover, edges gilt (hairline crack and faint scratches to deer image; wear to spine. Provenance: Sylvia Pedlar (1901-1972, American fashion designer).