Charles Henkel (1842 - 1915)

Inscribed back of base, incised: CH H[E]NKEL/MAKER/ BRATTLEBORO, VT/ 1870

Doyle New York, November 1982
Edmund L. Fuller, Woodstock, New York
Christie's New York, October 19, 1985, lot 58

American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum, p. 358, fig. 324

Age crack and shrinkage splits in base.
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As a cigar store figure, Punch was particularly popular in the 1870s and 1880s. The character was well known from Punch and Judy puppet shows that delighted 19th century audiences throughout the United States and England. There was also a brand of cigars of the same name. Punch himself is actually much older than either of these two sources, however. In his traditional English guise of Punchinello, he can be traced through France to Renaissance Italy, where Pulcinella was a comic figure in the commedia dell'arte. His ultimate progenitor is Maccus, a humpbacked, hooked-nosed character from the Atellanae, an ancient form of Roman satirical drama.

The usual depiction of Punch in this country, as created by Anglo-American shipcarvers, was a somewhat rotund character with a pronounced humpback, hooked nose, and mischievous leer. This example is more typical of Germanic tradition, a leaner figure with the same sort of vaguely malevolent grin but less emphasis on other features. Appropriately enough, its carver, Charles Henkel, was born in a small town near Neustadt, Germany. At the age of eight, he came to New York with his parents. As a young man, he attended an art school run by Ernst Plassmann, a German-born sculptor and woodcarver who was well known in his day. After completing his studies, Henkel moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, and then settled in Brattleboro, Vermont. There he had a woodcarving shop, but he mainly worked for forty-eight years as designer and head carver for the Estey Organ Company, creating the elaborate organ cases that were then in fashion.

Henkel and Plassmann are just two of a number of talented German sculptors and carvers who immigrated to the United States in the second half of the 19th century. In particular, many came after the Revolution of 1848. Because of cultural and language differences, they generally worked on the margins of the artworld, and many remain unidentified or obscure today. The best-known is probably Julius Melchers, who settled in Detroit in 1855 and operated a workshop for more than forty years that produced architectural sculpture, shop and cigar store figures, and ornamental carvings of all types. -R.S.