This is a listing for a 1973 FRANKLIN MINT Sterling Silver Limited Edition Plate by renowned artist Norman Rockwell. This is a fourth (4th) issue in a Limited Edition Series Christmas Plates by Norman Rockwell entitled “Trimming the Tree”. This is a work of art by a renowned artist. This artwork by Norman Rockwell is 51 years old. This is my eBay item # 430.
DESCRIPTION:
PLATE: Plate is a Franklin Mint
Limited Edition made of Sterling Silver (.925) and engraved with a Norman
Rockwell etching of his original work “Trimming the Tree”. The Franklin Mint added a sterling silver
medallion to the back of the plate with the cameo of Benjamin Franklin above
the following inscription, ”Trimming the Tree’ by
Norman Rockwell.”, “The 1973
FRANKLIN MINT CHRISTMAS PLATE”, “SOLID STERLING
SILVER”, “LIMITED EDITION”, and the serial
number “1286”, followed by the copyright mark of
the Franklin Mint and “1973”. The Franklin Mint Limited Edition Sterling
Silver Plate comes in the original box and the original library book-like
slipcase. The handsome burgundy colored
“library book-like slip case” is in excellent condition (see pictures of
slipcase). The outer white box
containing the “library book-like slip case” has brown age spots.
MEASUREMENTS & WEIGHT: The Sterling Silver Plate is
eight inches (8”) in diameter. The Sterling
Silver Plate weighs 6.6 ounces or 187.11 grams.
The plate contains 6.105 ounces of pure (.9999) silver. This is equal to 5.56 troy ounces of pure
(.9999) silver.
LITERATURE: Comes with two (2) original descriptive
Franklin Mint brochure and the Certificate of Authenticity. The “Certificate
of Authenticity” was issued November 1, 1973
with the serial number 1286, which
corresponds to the serial number on the plate.
A total of three (3) descriptive items.
The Franklin Mint “Trimming the Tree’ by Norman Rockwell ‘THE 1973
FRANKLIN MINT CHRISTMAS PLATE” descriptive brochure states in the opening
paragraph, “Trimming the Tree’ is the fourth in the
annual limited edition series of solid sterling silver Christmas Plates
designed by Norman Rockwell exclusively for The Franklin Mint”.
CONDITION: This
Franklin Mint 1973 Limited Edition Sterling Silver Plate by renowned artist
Norman Rockwell is in excellent condition.
No scratches, dents or dings. I
am the original owner of this plate. It
has never been displayed. It has been
kept in a climate controlled storage area since I purchased the plate in 1973. This Sterling Silver Plate was made 50 years
ago.
THE ARTIST: Norman Percevel
Rockwell (February
3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works
have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of American culture. Rockwell is most
famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over
nearly five decades. Among the best-known of Rockwell's works are
the Willie Gillis series, Rosie
the Riveter, The Problem We All Live With, Saying Grace, and the Four Freedoms series. He is
also noted for his 64-year relationship with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), during which he produced covers
for their publication Boys'
Life,
calendars, and other illustrations. These works include popular images that
reflect the Scout Oath and Scout
Law such
as The Scoutmaster, A Scout is Reverent and A
Guiding Hand, among many others.
Norman
Rockwell was a prolific artist, producing more than 4,000 original works in his
lifetime. Most of his surviving works are in public collections. Rockwell was
also commissioned to illustrate more than 40 books, including Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as well as
painting the portraits for Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, as well as those of
foreign figures, including Gamal Abdel Nasser and Jawaharlal
Nehru.
His portrait subjects included Judy Garland. One of his last
portraits was of Colonel
Sanders in
1973. His annual contributions for the Boy Scouts calendars between 1925 and
1976 (Rockwell was a 1939 recipient of the Silver Buffalo Award, the highest adult award given by the Boy Scouts of America), were only slightly overshadowed by his
most popular of calendar works: the "Four Seasons" illustrations
for Brown & Bigelow that were published for 17 years
beginning in 1947 and reproduced in various styles and sizes since 1964. He
painted six images for Coca-Cola advertising. Illustrations for booklets,
catalogs, posters (particularly movie promotions), sheet music, stamps, playing
cards, and murals (including "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "God
Bless the Hills", which was completed in 1936 for the Nassau
Inn in Princeton, New Jersey) rounded out Rockwell's œuvre as an
illustrator.
Rockwell's
work was dismissed by serious art critics in his lifetime. Many of his
works appear overly sweet in the opinion of modern critics, especially
the Saturday Evening Post covers, which tend toward idealistic
or sentimentalized portrayals of American life. This has led to the
often-deprecatory adjective, "Rockwellesque". Consequently, Rockwell
is not considered a "serious painter" by some contemporary artists,
who regard his work as bourgeois and kitsch. Writer Vladimir
Nabokov stated
that Rockwell's brilliant technique was put to "banal" use, and wrote
in his book Pnin: "That Dalí is really Norman Rockwell's twin
brother kidnapped by Gypsies in babyhood". He is called an
"illustrator" instead of an artist by some critics, a designation he
did not mind, as that was what he called himself.
PAYMENT: Payment can be made by whatever means acceptable to eBay.
SHIPPING: Shipping within the USA is
Free.