This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/25/2023
FRAYNE, Frank I. (1839 – 91). Six Nights Only of Mr. and Mrs. Frayne and the Great Kentucky Rifle Team. Glasgow, 1876. Two-color broadside bearing a wood-engraved bust portrait of the famed sharpshooter and advertising a performance of the “famous American drama” titled Si Slocum or Life on the Western Border, a frontier-centered story used as a vehicle through which Frayne could integrate sharpshooting feats into a longer stage production, presented here at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow. The show was also set to feature a “more than half human” frontier dog named Jack. 30 x 9 ¾”. Contemporary notation in upper right, old fold and margins reinforced on verso, else very good. Sold together with a trimmed lithograph depicting Frayne performing a trick “double shot” in which firing at a target above his assistant’s head triggers another rifle which hits a bullseye hanging above Frayne. 7 ¼ x 9 ¼”. Spotted, with short closed tears. After the death of Frayne’s first wife from asthma, he met and was engaged to an actress, Annie Von Behren. During a performance of one of his most difficult stunts – shooting an apple off of Annie’s head with the gun held backward over his shoulder, using a mirror to aim – the rifle misfired and Frayne’s betrothed was killed instantly.