Come on, we've all known "someone" who had a copy of at least one of these! [eds -- I know it's off topic! But, we do, since last night, have a new Top Dog.
NEW YORK — A pair of paintings from the famed series depicting dogs playing poker fetched nearly $600,000 at auction Tuesday. The two works — "A Bold Bluff" and "Waterloo" — were among 16 paintings that artist Cassius Marcellus Coolidge was commissioned to create for a Minnesota-based advertising company in 1903. Of the 16, nine are of dogs playing poker. The two works that sold Tuesday for $590,400 capture moments in a poker game played by five dogs, among them a St. Bernard that ends up collecting the pot on a bluff. The winning bid set a new auction record for Coolidge, whose previous top sale was $74,000, said Alan Fausel, director of paintings at Doyle New York, which handled Tuesday's sale. The winning bidder was a private collector from New York. Doyle had estimated that the two paintings would bring in between $30,000 and $50,000. The sale was part of Doyle's annual "Dogs in Art" auction, which coincides with the Westminster Kennel Club dog show. |