Tobacconist Figure: Dude

Dateca. 1880

OriginAmerica, New York, New York City (probably)

MediumPainted eastern white pine (Pinus strobus)

DimensionsOverall: 72 x 17 x 23in. (182.9 x 43.2 x 58.4cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, Winthrop Rockefeller

Object number1956.705.3

DescriptionLife-sized figure of a man standing on a black base holding a cigar case in his upraised left hand. He is wearing a hip- length red coat with one gold button fastened A blue shirt collar covered by a striped vest, dark green tight pants, and a black top hat. A gold chain and red watch fob hang from his waist.

Artist unidentified.
Label TextLike the "Girl of the Period," the dude stereotyped a slightly disreptuable character, thereby creating enormous appeal for tobacco buyers having nonconformist tastes. Also known as sporting dudes and, somewhat later, as race track touts, such figures personified slick operators whose hot tips and irresistible odds disadvantaged the naive and gullible.
Identified by flashy, tailored clothes and self-confident, knowing stances, dudes humorously exaggerated the professional con artist's persona. Cigars betokened a gambler's largess, so representations of these figures made logical tobacco advertisements.
In 1886, a now-unidentified show figure carver commented that "dudes had quite a go for a while," adding that, at that time, he had "fully twenty-five dudes planted around Brooklyn and New York." Acknowledging the vicissitudes of fashion, however, he admitted that dudes were by then "on the wane."
The tips of several cigars stick out of the breast pocket of this figure's coat. Precise identification of the green, box-like object in the extended hand is controversial but is assumed to represent some form of tobacco.
ProvenanceProbably Anthony W. Pendergast (see n. 1 below); to Rudolf Frederick Haffenreffer, Jr. (1874-1954), Bristol, RI; on 10 October 1956, sold at Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, NY; purchased at the foregoing auction by The Old Print Shop, New York, NY, acting as agent for CWF.

n. 1: Ownership prior to Haffenreffer is undocumented. However, Fried ("Bilbliography"), p. 238, states that "most" of the Haffenreffer figures sold by Parke-Bernet in 1956 were "once part of the collection of Anthony J. [sic] Pendergast." Also, Krech ("Bibliography"), p. 115, states that Haffenreffer tended to buy entire collections at a time.

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