Information

Provenance

The artist

Helen Cornell Jagger, Westhampton, New York, sister of above, gift from above, ca. 1970

Helen Jagger Batcheller, Westhampton, New York, daughter of above, by descent from above

Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, New York, November 15, 2007, lot 101

Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York, New York

Private collection, New York, New York

Note: In his collage work, Cornell made use of popular magazines, photographs, and other clippings. The title of this composition derives from several sources. Beginning in the 1950s, Cornell explored the theme of carousels in both his sculptural and collage work. Carousels have often played the orchestral band music of marches and waltzes. Joseph Lanner (1801–1843) was a Viennese composer who made the folk dance music of waltzing a higher concert form of music. The cutout of the two girls, likely from The Magazine Antiques, relates to a ship’s figurehead in the collection of the Mystic Seaport Museum, Connecticut; such figureheads eventually influenced the creation of other figurines, like those on carousels. The image of the ship was probably taken from Life Magazine.