This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/9/2023
HARBIN, Robert (Ned Williams, 1908 – 78). Original Sketch for Harbin’s Zig-Zag Girl Illusion. Circa 1965. Rough blue ink sketch on thin yellow paper, drawn by Harbin as a conception of his famous stage illusion, the Zig-Zag Girl, in the company of fellow magician Eric Lewis. Depicted is the upright cabinet and three detailed views; the largest portion of the image hints rather boldly at the method behind the effect. Sheet size 9 ½ x 6 ¼”, with faint old folds and wrinkling. Sold together with a photograph of Eric Lewis in later years, and a letter of provenance from Christopher Woodward, Harbin’s friend and the former owner of the sketch, and vintage photographs taken of a television screen on which Harbin presented the illusion on a broadcast of Sunday Night at the London Palladium.
Unquestionably one of the most popular and baffling stage illusions of the modern era, Harbin’s Zig-Zag Girl was an instant success after its introduction to the public in the 1960s. As such, it also became one of the most copied effects of its type. Eric Lewis was a close personal friend of Harbin’s and relates the genesis story of the Zig-Zag – an idea Harbin had been mulling over for quite some time - in his biography, The Genius of Robert Harbin: “[Harbin] burst into my home bubbling over with excitement. ‘I’ve got it, old man! You just push her over!’ I did not have the faintest idea what he was talking about.” Lewis went on, “He then grabbed a piece of paper and pencil and rapidly scribbled out the first drawing ever of the Zig-Zag Girl illusion. He pointed out that the cabinet would be completely unfaked so it could be thoroughly examined.” He continued, “I was not impressed. I looked at the space which I estimated must be about nine inches when the girl had been ‘pushed over’ and I thought it would look too obvious to an audience. His enthusiasm would not be dampened and he insisted he had a ‘world beater.’ At the time, neither of us had any idea just how right he was!”