A CARVED AND POLYCHROME PAINT-DECORATED CIGAR STORE FIGURE OF 'PUNCH'

Used to lure customers into the store to try his brand of tobacco, the menacing Punch was a very popular cigar store figure form. This figure exhibits Punch’s classic costume, hunchback and grimace. A very similar example attributed to the workshop of New York carver Samuel Robb was sold at Pook and Pook Inc., Downington, Pennsylvania, on 18 April 2008 (lot 296). Both examples have similar poses and forms, and share the same details including smile-like grimaces, costumes with a wide, square collar and short, stout legs. Samuel Robb was a well-known New York carver who worked for William Demuth & Co. A Punch example is illustrated in Demuth’s catalogue as no. 32. For further information on Samuel Robb and William Demuth see Frederick Fried, Artists in Wood: American Carvers of Cigar-Store Indians, Show Figures, and Circus Wagons (New York, 1970).