License Plate for a Bear of Very Little Brain?

I spotted this car two weeks ago parked in a shopping mall, possibly not too far from the Hundred Acre Wood:

"HUNNY JAR"
New York State license plate

03635

Now We Are Six

E. H. Shepard, "The Morning Walk"
A. A. Milne, Now We Are Six, 1927, pages 84-85

http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/Now_We_are_Six/pages/51_Now_We_are_Six.htm

E. H. Shepard, "Anne's Balloon"
A. A. Milne, Now We Are Six, 1927, page 86

http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/Now_We_are_Six/pages/52_Now_We_are_Six.htm

Now we are six. Six years ago today, your mild-mannered cartoon correspondent brought into being a brand spanking new blog. Yes, you're looking at it now. This sixth anniversary finds me on the cusp of meeting some long-term goals, goals I once foolishly expected I could meet handily more than a year earlier, but which have come to mean less and less to me over time. Hitting a million page views on the blog, for one, makes for a nice round number indeed, but it is hardly a ringing endorsement when only thirty-four people worldwide have opted to follow the blog after six years. Similarly, winning five thousand Twitter followers sounds impressive enough, but it has done very little to drive new traffic to the blog. Rather, I seem to have gotten caught up in a senseless churning process on Twitter where accounts follow me for little reason other than that I will follow them in return. Thus the engagement on Twitter isn't all that much better than when I had but a few hundred followers who were more interested in my actual posts.

Attempted Bloggery All-Time Overview Stats
June 23, 2017

Twitter Followers, June 23, 2017

More to my usual point, Now We Are Six, the title of this post, is first and foremost the title of A. A. Milne's 1927 book of children's verse. Three original illustrations by E. H. Shepard from "The Morning Walk" sequence were sold as a set at Sotheby's in 2012.

E. H. Shepard, "The Morning Walk"
Original art
A. A. Milne, Now We Are Six, 1927

E. H. Shepard, "When Anne and I go out a walk"
Original art
A. A. Milne, Now We Are Six, 1927

E. H. Shepard, "Anne's balloon"
Original art
A. A. Milne, Now We Are Six, 1927

E. H. Shepard
Sotheby's Item Description, December 12, 2012

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/english-literature-history-l12408/lot.184.html

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

E. H. Shepard

A. A. Milne

Anniversaries

Attempted Bloggery's Ambulatory Index

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E. H. Shepard: On the Bridge

An iconic illustration by E. H. Shepard shows Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, and Christopher Robin standing on what is the Posingford Bridge in Sussex and gazing silently at the river below them. It appears in chapter six of A. A. Milne's The House at Pooh Corner published in 1928. Sotheby's, in a December 2014 sale, called it "Probably the most famous and evocative book illustration of the twentieth century." One year earlier, the auction house had sold Shepard's long-unseen preliminary pencil sketch as well. Here they are together with their respective auction listings.

E. H. Shepard, "For a long time they looked at the river beneath them saying nothing, and the river
said nothing too, for it felt very quiet and peaceful on this summer afternoon."
A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner, chapter six, 1928

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2014/english-literature-history-childrens-books-illustrations-l14408/lot.274.html

The preliminary sketch:

E. H. Shepard, "For a long time they looked at the river beneath them saying nothing, and the river
said nothing too, for it felt very quiet and peaceful on this summer afternoon."
Preliminary art, A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner, chapter six, 1928

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/english-literature-history-l13408/lot.397.html

E. H. Shepard, "For a long time they looked at the river beneath them saying nothing, and the river
said nothing too, for it felt very quiet and peaceful on this summer afternoon."
Preliminary art, A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner, chapter six, 1928

E. H. Shepard, "For a long time they looked at the river beneath them saying nothing, and the river
said nothing too, for it felt very quiet and peaceful on this summer afternoon."
A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner, chapter six, 1928

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

E. H. Shepard

A. A. Milne

Summer

Attempted Bloggery's Quiet and Peaceful Index

02221

ABC de Babar: Jean de Brunhoff to A. A. Milne

Who would have thought such a thing existed? From Bonhams in 2007, here is a first edition of ABC de Babar (1934) inscribed by author Jean de Brunhoff to none other than A. A. Milne. It's enough to turn anyone into a book collector.

Jean de Brunhoff, ABC de Babar (1934)
First Edition Inscribed by the Author to A. A. Milne

Jean de Brunhoff, ABC de Babar (1934)

First Edition Inscribed by the Author to A. A. Milne

Bonhams Bath, February 13, 2007

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/15037/lot/231/

Jean de Brunhoff, ABC de Babar (1934)
First Edition Inscribed by the Author to A. A. Milne

0758

Pooh Visiting in Owl's Parlour

This Winnie-the-Pooh drawing by E. H. Shepard will be sold on September 20 at the Modern Pictures and Sculpture sale at Bonhams in Knightsbridge.  The figure of Pooh, of course, is quite endearing, and it's just possible this color drawing could sell for considerably more than the £6,000 - £8,000 estimate.  It's proved a bit of a hard piece to move though, as Owl is not nearly so charming. Indeed, this is Bonhams fourth attempt since 2007 to find a new home for the drawing.  Over that time, the estimate has dropped from £20,000-30,000 to the comparatively anemic £6,000-8,000. I believe its time has come.

Ernest Howard Shepard (British, 1879-1976)

Pooh visiting in Owl's parlour

                     http://www.bonhams.com/eur/auction/18928/lot/227/

Lot No: 227

Ernest Howard Shepard (British, 1879-1976)

Pooh visiting in Owl's parlour
pen and ink and coloured pencil
10.5 x 12cm (4 1/8 x 4 3/4in).
Estimate: £6,000 - 8,000, €6,800 - 9,100

September 20, 2011: Unsold. I'm at a loss.

Footnote:
PROVENANCE:
With Chris Beetles, London;
Private collection.

EXHIBITED:
London, Chris Beetles Limited, The Illustrators: The British Art of Illustration 1800-1992 28th November - 23rd December 1992, no. 435

PUBLISHED:
A A Milne, Winnie-The-Pooh (Methuen, 1926).

Ernest Howard Shepard (British, 1879-1976)

Pooh visiting in Owl's parlour

http://www.bonhams.com/eur/auction/18928/lot/227/

Note:  I last discussed a Pooh drawing here.

081

When is an Illustration Worth $200,000?

Yes, this blog is not afraid to ask the really tough questions.

Lot No: 92 Ernest Howard Shepard (British, 1879-1976) "Pooh and Piglet walked home thoughtfully together in the golden evening, and for a long time they were silent," illustration for A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh (London: Methuen; New York: E. P. Dutton, 1926).

Signed "EHS."
Pen and ink on board.
8 x 13.5cm (3 1/8 x 5 5/16in).  Matted and framed.
Estimate: US$100,000 - 200,000 

Sold for US$194,000 inclusive of Buyer's Premium 
Footnote:  Provenance:  Sporting Gallery, 1928 .

For most of us, that kind of money should go toward buying a home, not a drawing.  Some fortunate collectors and dealers do have that sort of a budget for art, and there was evidently even some competition among them to acquire one of the more important lots from Bonhams's June 22 sale.

So when is an illustration worth $200,000 at auction? First of all, from a purely technical point of view, with the low estimate at $100,000 in this case, there have to be at least two potential buyers who want the item badly enough to bid it up to this range. For any piece of mere illustration art to command this kind of attention at auction, it has to be something truly special. Indeed, the image should be iconic, ideally by a well-known artist depicting beloved characters, particularly in a fondly-remembered moment.

Here we have E. H. Shepard's classic rendition of two of A. A. Milne's characters from the last pages of the 1926 book Winnie-the-Pooh. Usually a collector would want the figures to be shown more or less from the front in a classic pose or attitude, but in this case the charming image as they amble away towards the setting sun works extremely well and is totally endearing.

Note how Pooh Bear's head tilts down toward Piglet and how Piglet's snout is pointed upwards toward the bear, connecting them even in their silence. Multiple diagonals--the book, Pooh's right shoulder and right foot, the shadows--lead the eye from him back towards Piglet. E. H. Shepard's charming drawing is all the more remarkable because it seems so effortless.

The original auction listing can be found here: http://www.bonhams.com/eur/auction/19514/lot/92/

E. H. Shepard "Pooh and Piglet walked home thoughtfully together in the golden evening, and for a long time they were silent."
Original art
A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh (London: Methuen; New York: E. P. Dutton, 1926)

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