A Record $142,000 for Three Disney Cels

Three cartoon cels with backgrounds from Walt Disney films sold for record-breaking sums at Christie’s East in New York this week. A Canadian buyer, identified only as “a private collector, not a dealer,” paid $142,000 for the three cel set-ups.

He paid $58,000--more than twice the previous record for a piece of animation art--for a cel of Mickey Mouse in the cartoon short “The Mad Doctor” (1933). The first black-and-white cel ever offered at a public auction, the 9 1/2-inch by 11-inch sheet of celluloid shows Mickey peering through the window of a haunted castle while skeletons rise from the steps behind him. Its estimated presale price was $7,000 to $9,000.

The same collector bought a color cel and background of the Evil Queen from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937) seated on her peacock throne for $48,000, and a cel and background of Pinocchio with a rock tied to his tail, searching for Monstro the Whale, for $36,000.

Steven Spielberg set the previous record for a piece of animation art in 1986, when he paid $28,000 for a cel and background of the Wicked Witch from “Snow White.”

Christie’s sale Wednesday night of 226 lots of cels, drawings, backgrounds, story board sketches and related works--virtually all of it from Disney films--sold for $628,000, breaking the record set at Christie’s in December, 1984, when the John Basmajian collection of Walt Disney animation art brought a total of $543,620.

“We feel these records will stand for some time,” said Susan Britman of Christie’s animation art department.

Ironically, the record sale had been planned as a relatively minor event. Christie’s now holds two auctions of animation art each year; the fall sales are larger and usually contain the more important pieces. The sale scheduled for late November will include about 350 lots.

The record prices reflect the rapid appreciation of the animation art market. At the Basmajian sale, a cel of the Wicked Witch brought $9,000. Three years earlier at Sotheby’s in Los Angeles, cels from “Pinocchio” sold for as little as $185.