This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 6/19/2021
Downs, T. Nelson. Portrait of T. Nelson Downs, Inscribed and Signed. Circa 1902. Full-length image of the manipulative magician performing The Miser’s Dream, a coin in the air before him and a hat in one hand. Plain mount, 6 1/8 x 4 1/8”. Inscribed and signed, “To Eddie, my one best friend, T. Nelson Downs.”This portrait – showing Downs executing the feat which made him famous, and which many say started a trend of specialized vaudeville magic acts – is most likely inscribed to Eddie McGlaughlin, a fellow Iowan and one of Downs’ closest confidants in the last twenty years of his life.