HERITAGE: THE ARTISTRY OF WALTER SHIRLAW

It is impossible to deny the resounding, intrinsic links binding US paper currency and American art history, and nowhere is this relationship more clearly exemplified than in our upcoming FUN Currency Signature Auction, scheduled for January 14-17.

Next month we are offering a "Sepia Photograph" of Walter Shirlaw's original design for the $5 Educational Series note, today considered by many to be the most beautiful banknote in US history. Not only does this offering reveal the preliminary sketch of an iconic banknote design, but it also provides invaluable insight into the creative process of one of the most prolific American artists of the nineteenth century.

Born in 1838, Shirlaw had early admiration and aptitude for art, however his parents discouraged his interests, fearing the financial instability that often comes with being an artist. After learning of the benefits of a career in engraving, Shirlaw began training and by 1852, he was a skillful engraver at the American Bank Note Company in New York. He could not, however, shake his desire for a formal art education, and in 1861, he accepted a position at the Western Bank Note Company in Chicago where he would work to save money for school in Europe. At this point, Shirlaw was already considered "one of the country's most expert men in his line."1 After three years in Chicago, Shirlaw went to study art in Munich before eventually returning to New York in 1878.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing commissioned Shirlaw, alongside muralists Edwin Blashfield, and William H. Low to design nominations for a series of neoclassical silver certificates referred to as the "Educational Series." By that point, all three artists had already completed works for US government buildings and represented the United States in international competitions. The Bureau's chief, Claude M. Johnson, intended for the series to highlight the country's artistic and industrial strengths while encouraging a sort of celebratory nationalism. Low's $1 design featured a vignette of History Instructing Youth, while Blashfield's $2 design was entitled Science Presents Steam and Electricity to Commerce and Manufacture. Finally, Shirlaw's vignette of Electricity Presenting Light to the World, remains one of the most recognizable today.

Shirlaw's obverse design places the allegorical figure of Electricity holding a lightbulb over her head in the center. To her left, the Roman god Jupiter rides a chariot while wielding a lightbulb. To her right, Peace is portrayed with a dove, gracefully positioned in front of the Capitol Building and White House. Seated beside Electricity are a Bald Eagle and the allegorical figure of fame blowing a horn. Also in our upcoming auction is another sepia photograph of Shirlaw's design from an earlier stage of his creative process. This "Sepia Photograph" of Early Design Proposed by Walter Shirlaw only shows the central vignette of Electricity Presenting Light to the World and does not include the traditional banknote markers which are present on the above offering.

Walter Shirlaw's artistic achievements spread far beyond his numismatic creations. Considered one of America's first great decorators, he is contemporarily remembered for his "Peace and Plenty" frieze created for the dining room of Dr. Ogden Mills, his designs in the big dome of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building in the Chicago World Fair, and "The Sciences" allegorical figures in the entrance hall of the Congressional Library. He's also accredited as an integral figure in the founding of the Art Institute of Chicago. Today, Shirlaw's paintings can be found at museums around the country, and sometimes even in Heritage's own Fine Art auctions.

Despite Shirlaw's impressive oeuvre, his work went largely unrecognized for several years until Katherine Dreier, an artist and former pupil of Shirlaw's, organized an exhibition of his works at the Brooklyn Museum in 1929. It seems that Walter Shirlaw's legacy lives on through that of his students; Katheirne Dreier is best remembered today for forming the Société Anonyme alongside Dadaists Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. This organization operated on the belief that a museum dedicated to the preservation of modern art and works by living artists should be established in the United States.

This striking $5 Silver Certificate sketch presents a fantastic opportunity for those collectors whose interests sit at the intersection of numismatic and art history to take home a beautiful piece which so excellently exemplifies both!

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