Retha M. Sales papers on wax miniatures
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Abstract
The collection includes documents related to Retha M. Goodwin Sales's work with wax miniatures as an artist, a collector, and an art historian. The collection holds manuscripts of Sales's unpublished writings, photographs of portraits she sculpted or owned, correspondence, research notes, newspaper clippings, and other documents. The collection also holds about fourteen printing woodblocks.
Biographical / Historical
Retha Marian Goodwin Sales (1907-1984) was born in Syracuse, NY. She studied art in high school in Rochester, but apparently had no further formal education. In her early career, she was a fashion artist for specialty shop and store advertising. She developed her own understanding of how to work with wax in sculpting miniatures, engaging with the medium fully in 1938. In 1940, she sculpted a miniature portrait of Sara Delano Roosevelt, the mother of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This object attracted some attention and was exhibited; it is now in N-YHS's museum collection.
With the support of her husband, Charles Frederick Sales, Retha began to collect wax miniatures. By the early 1950s, she had formed a collection of about 50 of these works, both American and European. The collection was the subject of a 2-part article she wrote for Antiques magazine in 1952. Acquiring these objects, often of unknown attribution and subject, led her to research that both informed her understanding of particular objects and led her to the drafting of manuscripts concerning the history of wax miniatures.
Sales's husband, Charles, died in 1963. In a note in this collection, Retha indicates she was giving up on pursuing her research and writing because of failing eyesight. She died in 1984.
(The above note was based primarily on documents in the collection.)
Arrangement
The collection is organized by format.
Scope and Contents
The collection includes documents related to Retha Sales's work with wax miniatures as an artist, a collector, and an art historian. The collection primarily includes manuscript drafts of her unpublished history of wax as a medium for art, titled "Almost Speaking Images of American Wax Portraiture and Its Historical European Background." The drafts have sections on Italian, French, German, English, and American wax portraiture. Of the American portraiture, the work of Patience Lovell Wright predominates in the writings. These include an essay on Wright that in some form was submitted to the Saturday Evening Post for consideration, though it was declined.
There are many documents concerning Sales as an artist and as a collector of wax miniatures, including photographs of her work, descriptions of objects in her collection, a two-part article she wrote for Antiques journal (published in 1952) about the collection, news clippings, publicity pieces, auction catalogs, and other documents.
There is some correspondence in the papers, mostly incoming, with few if any outgoing. The principal correspondent here is Louise Edwards Clark (died 1959); her letters relate to Sales's interest in Clark's work as a wax sculptor and collector. Other correspondence relates to research inquiries, potential acquisitions, and the like. Sales's research informed both her historical writing as well as provenance research on the objects in her collection.
In addition to the photographs of miniatures sculpted by Sales, there are photographs of objects in her collection and objects sent her for research reference and as illustrations for her intended book. Finally, there are about 14 woodblock printing plates of miniatures.
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Access Restrictions
Open to qualified researchers. Materials are stored offsite and advance notice is required for use. Please contact manuscripts@nyhistory.org prior to your research visit to coordinate access. Keep in mind that it will take between two (2) and five (5) business days for collections to arrive, and you should plan your research accordingly.
Use Restrictions
Taking images of documents from the library collections for reference purposes by using hand-held cameras and in accordance with the library's photography guidelines is encouraged. As an alternative, patrons may request up to 20 images per day from staff.
Application to use images from this collection for publication should be made in writing to: Department of Rights and Reproductions, The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024-5194, rightsandrepro@nyhistory.org. Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 282.
Copyrights and other proprietary rights may subsist in individuals and entities other than the New-York Historical Society, in which case the patron is responsible for securing permission from those parties. For fuller information about rights and reproductions from N-YHS visit: https://www.nyhistory.org/about/rights-reproductions
Preferred Citation
The collection should be cited as: Retha M. Sales papers on wax miniatures, MS 3174, New-York Historical Society.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The source of the collection has not been determined, but a document in the papers indicate Sales's desire to have the papers donated to N-YHS at her death. Presumably either Sales's donated the papers during her lifetime, which is most likely, or by her estate afterward.
About this Guide
Processing Information
The collection was processed and described to only a minimal degree by archivists Elise Winks and Larry Weimer in 2020-21, with an initial finding aid published in December 2021 by Weimer.