CE -- A lifetime of collecting comic related material :: Disney Studio Pt. 2 - Cels and Backgrounds *

Cel Set Up from The Robber Kitten, 1935

Artist: Walt Disney Studio (All)

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Cel Set Up from The Robber Kitten, 1935 Comic Art

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Additional Images:

Frame from Same Scene as Cel and Similar Background as Seen in the Cartoon

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Cel and Matching Background Painting for the Silly Symphony, The Tortoise and the Hare, 1935

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Background Painting from The Robber Kitten, 1935

Artwork Details

Title:	Cel Set Up from The Robber Kitten, 1935
Artist:	Walt Disney Studio (All)
Media Type:	Mixed Media
Art Type:	Animation
For Sale Status:	NFS
Views:	972
Likes on CAF:	0 1
Comments:	0
Added to Site:	4/7/2013
Comic Art Archive:

Description

The cel and background painting do not actually match [i.e., this cel wasn't photographed against this background in the making of the cartoon], but the set up is very close to what appears in the short. This can be seen in the clip from the film which is attached as an additional image to this posting. The cel shown in that clip is only one or two drawings off in the pose from the position seen in this original cel.

Collecting Disney Background Paintings, Part 9 and last.

I have owned several other Disney bacground paintings over the years, some with cels and others without. The very first background in my collection was one from Cinderella, with a cel of the title character in the moment when she pulled the other glass slipper out of her apron. I thought it was well worth the $450 I paid to have the culmination moment of the feature. I bought it in 1980, a time when Disney's features had not yet been released on videotape. When I finally bought a Beta version several years later, I couldn't wait to view the scene. But I didn't see what I epected. The background for the scene with the slipper was very obviously not the background I owned. In fact, I was never sure that my background appeared anywhere in the featyre...but the n.g. written in the margin was probably a good indication that it had not made the final cut. Several years later, the correct set up showed up at Christie's East. I didn't buy it, since prices had increased dramatically by then. But I did sell my imposter!

Another early purchase was a cel of the White Rabbit on a background of a distorted, stylized background from the same scene of Alice in Wonderland. At first I wondered why the peg holes of both the cel and background were at the top of the art, but, when Alice made it onto hme video, I saw that the set up had been filmed upside down, and that it appeared immediately after the rabbit had fallen down his hole and came out, inverted, in Wonderland. This unusual fact didn't both me at all, since the set up would be framed so that no peg holes would be seen. But, after several years, I sold this as well, undoubtedly to buy a more impotant piece of art.

I also once owned two other set ups from Sleeping Beauty One showed the court heralds trumpeting on a matching background of a wall and balcony of King Stephan's castle. The colors were beautiful, but it just wasn't important. The other was an arts prop set up with Fauna, the green fairy, starting to make Briar Rose's 16th birthday cake. It was signed and inscribed to a Hollywood star by Walt Disney. It went to help pay for my most important English watercolor.

I regret parting with three pieces. One was a very attractive large-field background showing a panoramic desert scene from the Pecos Bill sequence of Melody Time - the location where the infant hero fell off the wagon, literally. After it was sold, I still had an art props set up of the adult Pecos Bill riding Widow Maker while searching in the desert for water. I sold it, for similar reasons, a few years later.

The two set ups i greatly regret selling were victims of my own mistakes. One was from The Wind in the Willows segment of The Adventures of Icabod and Mr. Toad, 1949. I identify strongly with Toad and his manias. I bought a small but very nice art props setup showing MacBadger, Rat, and Mole toasting with little wine glasses against a background with a prominent Christmas tree. The bodies of the figures had been trimmed from one cel while their feet were trimmed from a separate cel. This would have been done so that the bodies could move through a series of cels as they raised their glasses while their shoes remained stationary on a held cel. I kept the piece on the upper shelf of my bedroom closet. One day I took it out and, to my utter shock, saw that the paint of the bodies was all blotchy/mottled. Apparently humidity from the nearby batroom had gathered in the closet, totally ruining the paint. The damage could have been restored, but I have always been strongly opposed to the restoration of animation cels. If original cel paint is scrapped off and replaced with new paint, invariably of a different type than what was originally used by Disney, there is very little left of the actual art, usually only some thin outlines painted on the opposite side of the cel. The shoes were still undamaged, but, since there was virtually no chance of ever finding a replacement cel of the characters' bodies, I reluctantly sold the damaged setup. Guess what, a couple of years later the perfect, undamaged cel with the bodies which would have been the perfect replacement, turned up at auction and sold for a reasonable price. Of course, there were no shoes for use with that cel, which wouldn't have mattered to me if my former shoes and background weren't long gone! Continued...

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	C E
Joined:	April 2006
Last Login:	August 2025
Country:	UNITED STATES
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