Property from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection CHARLES MEURER (1865-1955) Royal Flush oil ...

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Property from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection
CHARLES MEURER
(1865-1955)
Royal Flush
oil on panel
14 x 20 in. (35.6 x 55.9 cm)
painted circa 1899 Estimate: $50,000-70,000 Provenance
George Wiedemann Brewing Company, Cinncinnati, circa 1899 Private Collection Ira Spanierman, Inc., New York, 1980 Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, 1980 Exhibited
Rome, Musei Vaticani; Lugano, Villa Malpensata, Maestri Americani della Collezione Thyssen-Bornemisza, 1983-1984, no. 46 and 44 respectively (illustrated) Baltimore, The Baltimore Museum of Art; Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts; Denver, The Denver Art Museum; San Antonio, Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute; New York, IBM Gallery of Arts and Sciences; San Diego, San Diego Museum of Art; Palm Beach, The Society of the Four Arts, American Masters: The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, October 28, 1984-April 13, 1986, no. 46 (illustrated) Charlottenburg, Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Nationalgalerie and Orangerie des Schlosses; Zürich, Kunsthaus, Bilder aus der Neuen Welt, Amerikanische Malerei des 18 und 19 Jahrhunderts, Meisterwerke aus der Sammlung Thyssen-Bornemisza und Museen der Vereingten Staaten, November 22, 1988-May 1989, no. 72 Literature
Barbara Novak, The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection: Nineteenth-Century American Painting, New York, 1986, p. 244, no. 83 (illustrated, p. 245) Bruce Chambers, Old Money: American Trompe L'Oeil Images of Currency, exh. cat., New York, Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., 1988, pp. 52-53 (illustrated, p. 54) Elizabeth Storm Nagy, Europa e America Dipiniti e acquerelli dell'Ottocento e del Novecento dalla Collezione Thyssen-Bornemisza, Milan, 1993, p. 56, no. 35 (illustrated) Charles Meurer saw his first trompe l'oeil still-life painting in 1886, when he was still an art student in Cincinnati, Ohio. The painting was William Harnett's Old Violin and it was owned by Frank Tuchfarber, the Cincinnati chromolithographer who, like Meurer, was a German immigrant. Seeing the Harnett strengthened Meurer's desire to paint still lifes, and his attention soon turned to illusionistic images of currency, many of them in letter-rack formats that may have been modeled on the works of John F. Peto that had been on exhibition in Cincinnati in 1887. Like many other American trompe l'oeil money painters of the late nineteenth century, Meurer incorporates newspaper clippings, letters, inscriptions, and objects in his paintings. In combination with the types of currency he chose as his subjects, he uses these items to construct often satirical commentaries on economic and political issues. George Wiedemann came to the United States from Saxony at age 19 in 1853. He, too, ended up in Cincinnati, where he founded the Wiedemann Brewing Company in 1878. Charles Meurer's father, a chemist and distiller, may in fact have worked for Wiedemann. When Wiedemann died in 1890, his two sons, Charles and George, Jr., took over the brewery's operations. It was the younger George Wiedemann who commissioned A Royal Flush from Meurer in about 1899. The painting then became the basis for two different chromolithographs, both titled A Royal Flush, that were published that year by Frank Tuchfarber. One of these chromolithographs, like the painting, bore the Wiedemann logo; the other did not. The print with the Wiedemann logo, poker hand, and Confederate currency was almost certainly intended to serve as an advertisement in local bars and saloons. The use of facsimiles of Confederate money in advertisements was much in vogue at the turn of the century. As with many of Meurer's other paintings, however, there is more to the painting than first meets the eye. Besides depicting the most valuable hand in poker, a royal flush - here the ace, king, queen, jack, and ten of clubs - the painting also contains two carefully selected Confederate bills. The top bill, shown in near mint condition, is a $50 note issued early in the Civil War at the new capital of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia. This was the first Confederate bill to bear a portrait of George Washington, Virginia's most famous citizen. The bill also contains a vignette, in the upper center, depicting the female personifications of Agriculture and Industry seated on a cotton bale, and, at the upper left, the figure of Justice, here concealed under the folded corner. The torn, burned, and battle-scarred bill that lies under the first note is a Confederate $500 bill issued near the end of the war. In its upper left corner is a (now-tattered) Confederate flag, beneath which is a circular vignette of a (mutilated) cavalryman and the (now-ironic) Confederate motto, "Deo Vindice." In the lower right corner of the original bill there was a portrait of General Stonewall Jackson, but that portrait is now buried under Washington's. Once the details of the two bills are known, their juxtaposition provides a harsh commentary on the failure of the Confederate cause, a cause that began with high political and economic hopes and ended in ruin, in part because of the absence of justice. The winning hand was held instead by the Union and its supporters, like Wiedemann, whose corporate emblem included the triumphant eagle of the United States. A Royal Flush thus served not only as an advertisement for the brewery, but also as a patriotic declaration. We are grateful to Dr. Bruce Chambers for cataloguing this lot. Auction Location:
United States

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Saturday November 23 -
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