Question about art?

[thrown_hammer]

I picked up an ink etching at an antique store locally. The title is "An Englishman and a gentleman" by Dennis Morgan. It's a drawing in ink of an English bulldog. It is dated 1927 and hand signed and titled in pencil. Also the name of the dog(forget it at the moment) and "National champ" in ink.
I found a few in etchings online for sale by the same artist. How can I authenticate this is real? I don't know art I just like bulldogs....

[djmcmath]

Authenticating art? Beats the heck out of me. But would you mind posting a scan? It sounds like a pretty cool piece.

In all seriousness, it seems like serious authentication is done by experts who get paid a lot of money. I've never bothered, because none of my pieces of potential artwork are worth anything. Good luck.

Dan

[thrown_hammer]

I'll just drag it to Antique Roadshow!
I can try to get a good pic of it tonight. It's all framed and matted and I dont have a scanner so we will see how the pics come out.

[thrown_hammer]

Here are a couple crappy pics. I will try to do better tommorow. Surely somone here has some culture?

[nostatic]

Originally posted by thrown_hammer
Surely somone here has some culture?

Tabs? Oh Tabs...

An etching of a bulldog...clearly this is a job for a man of wealth and taste.

[thrown_hammer]

Did a little more resaerch on this. Appearantly the artist is Morgan Dennis not Dennis Morgan. He did alot of drawings of dogs. He did a commercial run of drawings for a scotch company and drew Scotties in the ads. He was also commisioned by the AKC for artwork.
The dogs name as written on the etching is Dreamwold Centaur. I looked the dogs name up on the AKC website and he is indeed a national champion registered in 1913. He was owned by Thomas Lawson who was a multi millionaire in the early 1900's. He built an estate outside of Boston called "Dreamwold"(hence the name of his dog) at a cost of $6 mil. Thomas Lawson died in 1925 and the etching is dated 1927 so it was commisioned by some one other than the dogs owner.

Where would one go to get the etching appraised or authenticated? I wouldn't have a used car dealer appraise my car so would it make sense to have an art dealer appraise the etching? I am so confused.....

[tabs]

Morgan Dennis....1892-1960 Known as an Illustrator and Etcher. In my old Davenports he has one sale at auction back in 1994 of a 10x 14 piece for $660.00

Go to WWW.askart.com. unfortuantely it's not a free service...for value..current auction records...

Auction records rather than gallery sales determine what an artists work is really worth. Also having auction records legitimizes an artist...

Your piece has an indented line around it right...it's real....when they press the plate against the paper to creat the image it indents the paper...Then it's signed and usually numbered by the artist.

I would get the thing rematted with acid free matting to protect the piece from any further deterioration...

You have a nice piece that has some value...It probably was commissioned by the owner of the dog as a memorial.

I wouldn't worrk too much about the pieces authenticity..it's not really worth enough for a forger or faker to play around with...now if it were a Picasso I would start to wonder...

[thrown_hammer]

Thats what I was thinking. A hoax would cost as much as just buying the original piece.

[RickM]

Shawn, Need directions to Christies or Sothebys?

Nice find.

[jbryant]

Well never doubt the power of the Pelican BBS.

When I saw my stepfathers name...
He was named after an uncle, who was an artist. His father was Wesley Dennis an animal illustrator who mostly did children's books. He is more famous than his brother.
http://search.ebay.com/wesley-dennis_W0QQsokeywordredirectZ1QQsonewuserZ1
Next time I am home I will get you some info.
e-mail me:
vacows@crosslink.net if you need it sooner.

Jim

[thrown_hammer]

So Morgan Dennis was your step father's uncle? Small world! Any info you could gather would be great. Would there be any way to find out who commisioned the etching? Did he keep any records of that sort of thing? Just curious.....

[azasadny]

I thought that was a picture of Winston Churchill...