• Registered: 2013-01-05
  • Posts: 2

Topic: Vintage poster or print found at thrift store..

First time member & posting here, so take it easy on me please..

Bought a framed picture at a thrift store last week. Paid under $5.00 because I liked the old wood frame.

Signed: Eugene de Blaas 1901 (lower right corner inside art area); white border lower left: Venetian Flower Vendor by Eugene de Blaas; white border lower right: In the collection of Haussner's Restaurant (Dexter Press pearl river NY.)

I know from my internet search that the original 39"x51" oil on canvas went to auction at Sotheby's Nov. 2, 1999--when Haussner's closed down after 70 years.
This scaled down copy (not oil on canvas) is 20.5"x25.5". It seems to be in the correct aspect ratio since all the detail seems present as compaired to the original.

I can't find any information on prints of this picture by this artist, other than pasted copies from post cards evidently sold out of Haussner's Restaurant--I think they had a gift shop.

I know this poster/print was made somewhere between 1939--when Frances Wilkie Haussner bought the original for the restaurant, and 1952--when Dexter Press  moved from pear river to W. Nyack, NY.

Vintage poster or print? Well--I know the value is what I paid for it, but moreover some fun and education in researching it.

  • Registered: 2009-11-28
  • Posts: 29

Re: Vintage poster or print found at thrift store..

Hello Sandor, and welcome to the site!

I assume you mean this one -- http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=70312

I'm curious how you got the date range down to 1939-1952?

Haussner's sounds like it was an amazing place. I'm sure long time Baltimoreans know all about it. I found an interesting page on the Sotheby's auction here: http://www.thecityreview.com/f99shaus.html   It's kind of amazing now to think of how "low" the prices were - a major Gerome for only a million dollars, a Bougereau for just over $100 grand.

This page says the de Blaas was the first painting they ever bought, for $1,000: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2000-1 … r-dining/2  Seems they spent their fifth anniversary in Atlantic City, and bought it from the Yawkey family, long time owners of the Boston Red Sox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Yawkey).

Here's a pic of the restaurant from 1949, with the de Blaas in the center: http://mdhsphotographs.tumblr.com/post/ … ern-avenue

Here's a page with an auction record: http://artsalesindex.artinfo.com/asi/lots/2806533
And the catalogue text: http://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/e … suspgmmjje

Of course, none of that answers your original question or poster or print. Do you have a local antique shop you could take it to?

What an interesting life this painting has had.

  • Registered: 2013-01-05
  • Posts: 2

Re: Vintage poster or print found at thrift store..

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your response.

Yes, the image of the Venetian Flower Vendor is also as you stated above:
http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=70312

That's also an image of a postcard from what I can tell. At least 3 other images I can find, were of other postcards: the oldest printed by Dexter Press, Pearl River, NY (postage box reads--place one cent stamp here); the next being Dexter Press, West Nyack, NY (with a physically placed two cent stamp); and another one by H.S. Crocker Co. (postage box reads--place postage here).

This is how I derrived that this poster/print was made somewhere between 1939--after Frances Wilkie Haussner bought the original oil painting to hang in her restaurant, and 1952--when Dexter Press moved from pear river to W. Nyack, NY.

I didn't take the poster/print to a antique shop, but talked to fine paintings dealer. He said my first step is to find out about the publisher. In this case Dexter Press; the trail grows cold beyond their postcard printing.

Still having fun.