Item:  1882 graphite drawing by Abigail “Abbie” A. Peacock (Am., 1864-1927) depicting a little girl in an interior and entitled “Baby’s Shoes (From Life)”.  “From Life” means that the artist sketched this directly and in-person, not from a photograph or from imagination.  This drawing is by a “New Woman” (early feminist) artist who was in the first graduating class that studied ‘industrial art’ at today’s Moore College of Art & Design, and she’s a historical figure in Haddonfield, NJ, which itself was founded by a pioneering woman, Elizabeth Haddon in the 1700’s.  The provenance on this drawing is the estate of the old Sanski Gallery in Haddonfield, NJ.  PLEASE SEE MY OTHER EBAY LISTINGS FOR MORE SANSKI ESTATE ART (which I'll be listing over next week or so)! 

About The Artist:  On the face of things, the drawing offered here has an ‘Americana’ feel to it and would be nice for a collector of historic American folk art.  When Miss Peacock drew this, she was only 17 or 18 years old.  Fast forward two years to 1884, and she had graduated with her diploma from what’s known today as Moore College of Art & Design.  Back then it was called the Philadelphia School of Design For Women, and it was run by Emily Sartain, who was Thomas Eakins’ ex girlfriend.  Abbie’s graduating class consisted of only about 16 young ladies and they made news at the time because they were the first graduates that had received training in ‘industrial art’, meaning that the ladies could get jobs designing fabrics, clothing, fancy carpets, etc.  In 1884, Abbie would have crossed paths with Jessie Wilcox Smith at the school.  It was in that year, at the Women’s School of Design, that Jessie won the annual James L. Claghorn Gold Medal (for original illustration). Back in the day, the School of Design and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) were like sister schools. Famous artists like Daniel Garber taught at both places.  So, other than the Americana appeal of the drawing offered for sale here, and the fact that the artist was in a historic graduating class from today’s Moore College of Art (known for the Philadelphia Ten women artists group), Miss Peacock is best known as a figure in the history of Haddonfield, New Jersey (where Hollywood director Steven Spielberg is from).  You see, back in the late 1800’s, people like Jessie Wilcox Smith and Abbie Peacock were part of what’s known today as the “New Woman” movement, which was a precursor to feminism.  These were educated, career oriented women.  In a town like Haddonfield, which was Quaker, this would have been fine because Quakers always believed in the equality of the races and sexes.  I had my choice of some Abbie Peacock drawings that recently (re)surfaced from the old Sanski Gallery estate, but I picked this one because it’s charming and the others were just line drawings she did in class and they felt less personal, just sort of like exercises with notes on how much time it took to render a drawing of a group of objects or what have you.  I’m a dealer, so I have to pick and choose what I want to deal in. Other than what Sanski Gallery had by Miss Peacock, I suspect that her work is very rare to come across on the market.  The Historical Society of Haddonfield does have several of her notebooks, some with illustrations, all from 1877-1883, which were gifts to the society from Mrs. J. Redman Engle.  Abbie Peacock passed away back in 1927 and her resting place is on Kings Highway in today’s Cherry Hill, NJ at the Colestown Cemetery.

Background:  The provenance includes: Peacock estate art works, and Sanski Art Center Studio & Gallery, 50 Tanner Street, Haddonfield, New Jersey owned by Albert E. Sandecki (d.2013) & Karl M. Sandecki (d.2004).  After the Sanski (Sandecki) brothers passed away, the Sanski Gallery estate was handled by Brown’s Cleanouts (Brownie’s) but somehow C. Neri Antiques on South Street in Philly was involved, as was a local country auction where both Brown’s and Neri consigned the Sanski estate items (which is where I acquired this drawing and other art works). 

Details: The drawing is from 1882.  It’ll will look phenomenal once framed.  It was never framed before, just simply matted and shrink wrapped in-house by Sanski Gallery.  Please see pictures posted of Sanski's sign and gallery ephemera which are not included in this sale (they're part of my personal collection), but serve to illustrate the item's past-ownership history. Albert Sandecki (Per the Who Was Who In American Art: PAFA Fellow, Art Instructor, Art Conservator, and Museum represented artist) was a Philadelphia-area art dealer with years of experience as was his brother Karl.   

Provenance:  In the early 2000’s, Sanski Gallery was closing shop since the brother-owners, Albert and Karl Sandecki (their father, Edward A. Sanski (1906-77), who started the business, changed the family name to Sanski back around mid-century) were retiring.  They had advertised sales where prices would be reduced in order to liquidate as much as possible, and at the time my business partner, Mike Pacitti and I bought some select pieces from them.  A decade or so later, when the brothers passed away, the remaining gallery inventory (and there was a lot of it!) needed to be sold and cleared out because the building in Haddonfield had to be sold (and it did sell for $1.2 million in 2014).  The estate cleanout company that handled it was Brown’s Cleanouts (Brownie’s), and what they did with most if not all of the items was consign them to local country auctions where some things were sold individually, some in little stacks on tables (table lots), some in box lots, etc.  This was maybe half a dozen years ago.  Skip to 2019, and it’s like deja vu - Sanski gallery merchandise shows up again at a local auction, but this time they’re telling us that the items are from a gallery in Philadelphia (they won’t say where because they never do, but my ‘insider’ friend says it’s Neri Lighting, aka C. Neri Antiques on South Street).  I believe my friend is correct. Most of the items had their Sanski Gallery labels and price tags removed, which is something I could see another gallery doing.  Neri’s been around since 1975, so my guess is that he’s liquidating, thinking of retirement.  I don’t know how Neri acquired a portion of the Sanski Gallery inventory.  It could have been half a dozen ways: He bought a lot from Sanski when they were having their going out of business sales, he was in on the cleanout along with Brownie’s, he bought direct from Brownie’s, he bought everything at another local auction that Brownie’s consigned to at the time, etc. (?).  Estates are complicated things because the dealers who are ‘in’ an estate don’t want other dealers moving in on things, so it can all be very ‘hush, hush’, which is understandable.

History:  As you can imagine the Sanski gallery, having been located in the affluent Haddonfield area where Steven Spielberg is from, came across a lot of high end art since their opening in 1954. A 1979 New York Times article on them, “A Shopful Of Paintings In Haddonfield”, describes some inventory at the time by artists Emil Carlsen, Newbold Trotter, Alson Skinner Clark, Thomas Bancroft, etc. Having spent their summers in Harborside, Maine since 1964 they’d found a lot of treasures up there over the years including a stash of oils by Irving Wiles which my old friend Mike Pacitti had restored for Karl via Jimmy Murphy in ME. Background: Albert Sandecki was PAFA trained, taught art classes at Sanski Art Center (120 students per week), was in-house art conservator, and his own paintings hang in museums such as the Corcoran. He received the President’s “Volunteer Service Award” in 2008. Karl Sandecki’s role was mostly ‘searching out’ the artwork, gallery sales, etc. The Sanski Gallery was a place that was jam packed with art (American to European, 1700’s-1900’s) from floor to ceiling! Please see the pictures I’ve posted of their original store sign, old photos, newspaper articles, etc. which are now a part of my personal collection.