Disney Animation Artwork Prices Go Vrooooooom!

Prices for artwork from animated films shot up like cartoon skyrockets Tuesday night at Christie’s in New York, when an unidentified Canadian buyer paid $286,000 for a black-and-white cel and watercolor background from Walt Disney’s “The Orphan’s Benefit.”

The price was double the same buyer’s previous record bid for a piece of animation art and more than 10 times what Disney spent in 1934 to make the entire seven-minute cartoon.

Prices for outstanding examples of artwork from the classic Disney cartoons have been doubling almost every six months for the last few years. Since November, collectors have spent more than $700,000 on artwork from the “Orphan’s Benefit,” which, ironically, few film historians have considered among Disney’s most artistically significant works.

The price rise for animation art parallels the rapidly escalating prices that buyers are paying for both fine art and movie memorabilia at auctions and comes amid a resurgence of public interest in animation, as indicated by the recent box-office successes of “Oliver and Company,” “The Land Before Time,” “An American Tail” and, especially, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”

Although only 241 of Tuesday’s 295 auction lots found buyers, the staggering bids for the high-end pieces brought the total for the entire sale to more than $1.8 million, breaking the previous record set at a Christie’s auction last November.

Artwork from 61 Disney shorts and features dominated the auction at the firm’s 67th Street auction house. But records were also set for pieces from two other studios. A cel of Superman carrying Lois Lane to safety, believed to be from “Volcano” (1942), brought $12,100, a new high for artwork from the Fleischer Studio; a multilevel set-up from “The Flintstones” sold for $7,160, a record for a Hanna-Barbera production.

The record-setting 10x12 1/2-inch Disney celluloid sold Tuesday depicts a little mouse (a miniature version of Mickey) in a nightgown socking Donald Duck with a mechanical boxing glove. The background shows the mouse’s theater seat and the stage on which Donald was performing. The cel setup carried a pre-sale estimate of $40,000 to $50,000.

The same collector paid an additional $181,500 on Tuesday for another cel and background from “Orphan’s Benefit” showing two of the mice preparing to bomb the stage with bricks tied to balloons.

The Canadian had set the previous record of $135,000 for another setup from the same film in November, when a second buyer, identified only as “a Hollywood figure,” paid $110,000 for another cel and background from the movie.

“Orphan’s Benefit” cost $24,500 to produce 55 years ago and has been out of theatrical distribution since 1941, when Disney released a Technicolor remake.

Animation historians are puzzled that the high-end market seems to have crystallized around “Orphan’s Benefit.” Although Donald Duck threw his first temper tantrum in the film (when the rowdy mice interrupted his recitation of “Little Boy Blue”), it has not been considered among the most significant Disney works. “Steamboat Willie” (1928), “Three Little Pigs” (1933) and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937) have received far more attention for their importance to the development of the studio and the medium.

“I think these prices demonstrate that the works are now being bought primarily as an investment, rather than for their archival significance,” said film maker-historian John Canemaker. “Artwork from the black-and-white Mickey films is very rare, and each of the four pieces has included a cel and a background in mint condition. An old, very rare work in good condition is so attractive as an investment, I don’t think nostalgia for the individual film enters much into the purchase.”

The Canadian collector also bought a cel and background of the Wicked Witch from “Snow White” for $121,000 and a cel set-up of the Prince kissing the film’s heroine for $68,200. Both pieces went for more than double their pre-sale estimates of $40,000 to 50,000 and $10,000 to 15,000.

“It puzzles me that each auction is doubling the price of the previous record,” said The Walt Disney Co. archivist Dave Smith. “The other problem is each one of these auctions has about five or so stellar pieces that go for these tremendous prices and get all the publicity; then everyone thinks the things they own are also worth stellar prices, which isn’t the case.”

Next month, another animation art sale is scheduled at Christie’s in New York, and Sotheby’s will auction a selection of cels from “Roger Rabbit” in Beverly Hills.