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Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Sleeping Beauty Walk-through Story

In 2008, when the Imagineers got the go-ahead to reestablish the walk-through in Sleeping Beauty's the castle in Disneyland, there was one problem: there never had been a window related to the fight climax between Prince Phillip and Maleficent-turned-dragon, partly because there simply was no room for it, and partly because the walk-through was made before the design of the dragon was finalized. At least, that was the thought, because there was no art known for this purpose. Imagine my surprise seeing this in the catalog of this weekend's auction "The Story of Disneyland" organized by the Van Eaton Galleries that I spoke of yesterday:
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When it was decided to fill this real estate in the castle, an appropriate area had become freed up, and the hunt went on to find a representation of the fight to fill this spot. I was happy to be able to help forward another piece of Eyvind Earle's Sleeping Beauty works that Bob Cowan graciously photographed from his collection for me to send to the Imagineer in charge of putting the show together. Here (on the left) you can see it (not part of the auction, of course) and a few screen-grabs representing the actual window in the park, which I feel is quite more impressive in real life in the park than on these three photos:
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Maybe the art that's under the hammer as item 548 was originally planned for inclusion in the walk-through but just not implemented because of space issues? After all there is very little space in there, and the solutions for making the exhibits look larger than they are are often really imaginative. Well, who knows. But someone can be the happy owner of this great "missing" piece on Sunday - estimated at between $10,000 and $12,000. Which means the lucky bidder won't be bidding against me.

[Update: sold for $7.250 plus tax and premium - under estimate!]
[Addition: See Imagineer Extraordinaire (and, I remember, all-round nice guy) Chris Merritt's comment, in which he, among other things, mentions: " to clarify - we removed the "endless well" (aka the echo chamber) and replaced it with the "endless spinning wheel" scene in order to make room for the new Dragon attack."]

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Chris Merritt says...

Wow - this is fascinating! I wonder where Ken Anderson had planned to put this one...Based on the size of the window implied here, it may have been towards the end. I'm always surprised to see these "window frame" concepts for the walk through by Earle turn up. The WDI art morgue only has the final versions that are related to the 1957 show... Interesting! Also - to clarify - we removed the "endless well" (aka the echo chamber) and replaced it with the "endless spinning wheel" scene in order to make room for the new Dragon attack... OK - thanks! - Chris Merritt

Friday, April 3, 2015 at 10:23:00 PM PDT  
Anonymous Hans Perk says...

Thanks for clearing that up, Chris!

Saturday, April 4, 2015 at 1:06:00 AM PDT  

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