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AEDRustic Carved Cigars 5 Cent Sign (American, 20th century). Carved, Painted Polychrome Wood.
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About Auction
LiveMay 9, 2026
St. Louis Classic and Contemporary: the May Collection is a carefully curated auction presenting an exceptional breadth of fine art, works on paper, decorative arts and collectibles spanning multiple collecting disciplines, with highlights including works by Robert Motherwell, Willem de Koonig, Marc Chagall, Hans Bellmer, Sol LeWitt, Leslie Dill, Alexander Calder, Laszlo Dus, Ed Eugene Boccia and Siegfried Reinhardt alongside important American and European decorative arts. Woodard Lipe info@woodardlipe.com
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- Lot Description
Height 26.5 in., Width 18 in., Depth 3 in. The cigar store Indian trade figure stands among the most iconic objects in American commercial folk art, a tradition rooted in the 17th century when European tobacconists first employed carved figures to identify their shops to a largely illiterate public. By the time the form arrived in America in the late 18th century it had become thoroughly associated with Native American imagery, and the figures reached their peak production and cultural visibility between the 1840s and 1890s. Wikipedia This unusually composed example pairs a carved bust with a feathered headdress alongside a painted wooden cigar box reading CIGARS 5 cents, presenting an intact commercial tableau that speaks directly to the penny-economy tobacconist trade of the Gilded Age and early Progressive Era. Sidewalk obstruction laws passed as early as 1911, combined with rising manufacturing costs and shifting cultural sensitivities, hastened the decline of the form Wikipedia, making surviving examples of genuine age particularly prized among folk art collectors.
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