The Swann (25/20/10% buyer’s premium) sale was led by a collector’s bid of $55,000 (£43,410) for an ink drawing of Paul Robeson in a Broadway production of Othello, published in The New York Times in August 1942.
In August the following year the paper ran the Hirschfeld illustration also shown , promoting a production of Franz Lehar’s operetta The Merry Widow.
Choreographed by George Balanchine, it ran for well over 300 performances at the Majestic Theatre. The drawing sold to an un-named institution at $16,000 (£12,630).
