Hans Stengel's original illustration of an entertainment mogul hawking Broadway tickets was published in The New Yorker, an obvious profile illustration with a corresponding art department stamp on the verso. It would have had to appear in print some time between the magazine's founding in 1925 and Stengel's morbid suicide in early 1928, a fact noted by jrpostman, the eBay seller of this art. Postman's contention that it illustrates an A. J. Liebling piece on Jed Harris seems impossible on two counts; Harris was just in his twenties when Stengel died and Liebling didn't arrive at The New Yorker until 1935.
So just who is this aging impresario of the theater district? As it happens, the subject's name, Joe Leblang, is written right on the front of the drawing. The seller must have misread it as Liebling. Leblang was a discount ticket seller who was profiled in The New Yorker of January 2, 1926. No doubt he sold tickets to some Jed Harris productions.
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| Joe Leblang Hans Stengel Original Profiles illustration The New Yorker, January 2, 1926, page 11 |
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| Verso |
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| Hans Stengel eBay listing ended December 15, 2021 |
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| Hans Stengel eBay item description |
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| Joe Leblang Hans Stengel Original Profiles illustration The New Yorker, January 2, 1926, page 11 |
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| A cartoon by Carl Rose and an illustration by Hans Stengel |
Incidentally, the gorgeous drawing by Carl Rose demonstrates why no one today mourns the two-speaker caption:
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