Images(2)

Cigar Store Indian Maiden

Maker Samuel Anderson Robb

Period1880 - 1910

MediumPolychromed and gilded white pine

Dimensions63.5 × 15.75 × 18.25 in. (161.3 × 40 × 46.4 cm)

ClassificationsAdvertising, Business & Ornamental Artifacts

Credit LineMarshall P. Blankarn Purchasing Fund, 1968

Object number1983.413

DescriptionThe boldly carved figure of a female Indian features an elaborate multicolored and feathered headdress over long dark hair. She stands with her right arm upraised, holding a bound bunch of cigars. In her left hand she grasps some tobacco leaves. The figure is posed with the right foot slightly forward. She wears a red dress with short sleeves that is trimmed with ruffles. A gold-fringed blue sash or drape falls from the left shoulder to the right hip. The knee length fringed skirt has a carved multicolored feather overlay at the waist. Black circlet bracelets ornament both wrists. The life-size figure, wearing blue and gold painted moccasins on her feet, stands on a roughly carved block that is set into a rectangular wooden base that consists of black painted wide boards with slightly canted sides. The base advertises "Fine Cigars" and "Smoker's Supplies" in gold lettering.
Curatorial RemarksThis carved tobbaconist's figure of a female Indian is a fine example of the work of one of America's most prolific woodcarvers during the second half of the nineteenth century. Samuel Anderson Robb, son of a Scottish shipwright, was born in New York City in 1851. He apprenticed to Thomas V. Brooks, a ship's carver, and by 1877 had set up his own shop in the city. Robb's advertisement in the 1881 Lain's Brooklyn Directory indicated that he offered ship and steamboat carvings, "Shoe, Dentist and Druggist Signs," as well as "Tobbaconist Signs." Robb also produced, with numerous assistants, a substantial number of fanciful circus wagons, including many for Barnum & Bailey. The Association's cigar store figure is attributed to Robb on the basis of a 1903 photograph taken in his workshop. Robb's son Clarence (1878 - 1956) poses in front of a figure identical to that in the collection. Details which confirm this attribution are the wrist band on the upraised right wrist, the necklace, and the sash draped over the maiden's shoulder, to name just three points of comparison. By the turn of the twentieth century, the demand for carved wooden advertising figures had waned. In 1910, due to a lack of orders and ill health, Robb gave up his shop. By 1917 he was working as a coach builder for the Ford Motor Company in Philadelphia. The highly talented woodcarver died in New York City on 5 May 1928. The photograph on which the attribution is based can be found in Frederick Fried, Artists in Wood: American Carvers of Cigar Store Indians, Show Figures, and Circus Wagons (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1970), fig. 202. NotesThe present painted finish appears to be the second decorative coat applied to the cigar store figure, although it is possible that the face is original.

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