VERY FINE AND RARE CARVED AND POLYCHROME PAINT-DECORATED TOBACCONIST 'INDIAN WARRIOR' TRADE FIGURE, THOMAS BROOKS (1811-1887),, NEW YORK, CIRCA 1860

Allan Katz, Woodbridge, Connecticut;

Allan Stone, Rye, New York;

Christie's, New York, The Collection of Allan Stone, November 12, 2007, lot 621.

Thomas V. Brooks (1828–1895), who was one of the most important New York carvers of the mid and late-nineteenth-century, was born in New York City and apprenticed to the ship and figure carver John Cromwell (1805–1873) as a young boy. In 1848, Brooks opened his own shop on South Street, and, as the shipping business waned, began specializing in shop and show figures, in what members of the trade came to call “the image business.” In turn, Brooks is believed to have mentored Samuel Anderson Robb (1851–1928), who became the most successful of all New York figure carvers in the later years of the nineteenth century. By 1860, Brooks had six employees and an inventory of 100 figures, and an 1872 advertisement lists him as “Show Figure and Ornamental Carver…75 to 100 figures always on hand.”

This imposing six-foot, nine-inch figure is typical of the raw, powerful work attributed to Brooks. Because many of his figures were oversized, he adopted a solution similar to what Michelangelo employed in his “David,” supporting part of the statue’s weight with a carved tree stump.