Transcript
Speaker: Hello, and welcome to Curious Objects, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
Speaker: I'm Ben Miller.
Speaker: In the summer of 1966, a fairly well-known band called The Beatles went on tour in Japan.
Speaker: And for five days, they stayed at the Tokyo Hilton Presidential Suite, where they were effectively prisoners.
Speaker: The Japanese authorities were so concerned for their safety that poor John, Paul, Ringo, and George were more or less forbidden from leaving the hotel other than for their concerts.
Speaker: Now, it wasn't the worst prison cell in the world, but the Beatles did have to contend with quite an unfamiliar problem, boredom.
Speaker: Now, they didn't just sit around twiddling their thumbs and watching Japanese soap operas.
Speaker: They put their artistic talents to work in a new medium, paint.
Speaker: Yes, the Fab Four picked up their brushes and created a work of art, which is now being offered at auction at Christie's in their exceptional sale, closing on February 1st.
Speaker: It's called Images of a Woman, and I'm delighted to be partnering with Christie's on this episode to peel back the paint, strictly metaphorically, and see what this piece has to tell us about the lads from Liverpool.
Speaker: Now here to do that with me is Christie's Senior Vice President Casey Rogers, head of the Exceptional Sale.
Speaker: And Casey, we have a lot to talk about, but first, are you ready for some rapid-fire questions?
Speaker: I sure am, Ben, and thank you so much for having me.
Speaker: I'm really excited to really dive into this piece and other questions.
Speaker: Well, let's get straight to it.
Speaker: What is the most underrated Beatles song?
Speaker: We are jumping right into it.
Speaker: Well, look, I am certainly not an expert of the deep tracks for the Beatles.
Speaker: I certainly know what I like, what I don't like.
Speaker: I have...
Speaker: A little son who loves certain songs and we listen to them on repeat.
Speaker: So I'll give a shout out to Yellow Submarine there.
Speaker: But interestingly, while while preparing for this, I had some really great conversations around their catalog.
Speaker: So, look, overrated.
Speaker: I think that we all hear it ad nauseum.
Speaker: It's not even theirs.
Speaker: It's a cover.
Speaker: It's twist and shout.
Speaker: It's for a good bit of dancing at a wedding, but I don't think it's necessarily indicative of what their deep, deep talents were, but a bit of fun.
Speaker: I personally love, you know, Here Comes the Sun.
Speaker: I think it's when George is getting into the meat of his
Speaker: of his own sort of identity and songwriting.
Speaker: And it's just a beautiful song.
Speaker: And that's sort of later in the career for the band.
Speaker: And I love the song Blackbird.
Speaker: You know, it sits on a lullaby mix for my son every evening.
Speaker: So, you know, it's on repeat with us at home.
Speaker: Excellent.
Speaker: So we got overrated and underrated there.
Speaker: I want to ask what it's like to play on Les Paul's guitar.
Speaker: I am sadly not a musician.
Speaker: I gave it a good strum just so I could say it.
Speaker: But we did have that fantastic prototype here at auction with us to play sort of the first Les Paul was a real joy.
Speaker: Such a unique performance.
Speaker: moment in my auction career.
Speaker: I have colleagues who are far better musicians than myself.
Speaker: And we got to see our consultant, Kerry Keene, play it for CBS Sunday morning.
Speaker: So he gave it a good go.
Speaker: What's the first object or artwork that you remember falling in love with?
Speaker: Oh, this I feel like is the journey for so many in the art world.
Speaker: And it almost feels a bit cliche, but, you know, I certainly was first struck by the impressionists.
Speaker: I am from the Philadelphia area.
Speaker: I remember there being sort of a retrospective show on at the PMA.
Speaker: It was water lilies.
Speaker: It was all those other wonderful canvases that were on.
Speaker: on view there.
Speaker: I'm sure my mom and dad dragged me and my brothers and sisters off to see what was going on.
Speaker: And the posters stayed in my room for a very, very long time.
Speaker: So, you know, I stared upon them nearly every evening.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: What is the most valuable object or artwork that you've ever physically touched?
Speaker: physically touched and I will say also cleaned as we had back in 2016 for the exceptional sale as well a pair of 13 foot tall Baccarat tour shares they were called the czar's candelabra and they were created by the the crystal house Baccarat in the late 19th century but they were they came to us
Speaker: Covered in dust in over 700 pieces.
Speaker: They were the property of Warner Brothers Studios.
Speaker: So they had this fantastic sort of...
Speaker: You know, Hollywood connection.
Speaker: They had greased the screen with Judy Garland in A Star is Born, that fabulous scene where she has all of that sort of embarrassment at the Oscar ceremony.
Speaker: They're there in the background, but I happened to see them in the prop house.
Speaker: In all their glory, they came to us and we had to clean every last crystal to get them gleaming.
Speaker: So they're really spectacular in person.
Speaker: They were towering.
Speaker: And we finally sold them for $1.6 million.
Speaker: That was highlight of my career in the 19th century decorative arts here.
Speaker: Which Beatle would you invite over for dinner?
Speaker: And what would you talk about?
Speaker: My gosh, I find it like trying to pick one of your favorite children.
Speaker: I think that each of the members was so incredibly influential in their own right as a collective band, as individual artists.
Speaker: I think about actually how Christie's had recently done via our photographs department this incredible interview with Sir Paul McCartney.
Speaker: So certainly interesting.
Speaker: He's been top of mind.
Speaker: He was just showing his own photography during an exhibition at the end of last year, back in September, at the National Portrait Gallery.
Speaker: Much of it, images taken during their tours, during their time together.
Speaker: There was even some early selfie work, as I'd like to call it.
Speaker: So we had a really great opportunity to speak with him.
Speaker: What's a mistake that you've made in the art or deck of arts area that you perhaps learned something from?
Speaker: Well, I think that this business is such an incredible journey.
Speaker: We get to see so much come through the galleries here, but we often see things that haven't come through the galleries here.
Speaker: And I find myself thinking about the objects we've not been able to handle and touch and sort of see for that short time that we do for an auction.
Speaker: So there's often things that are the ones that get away.
Speaker: And, you know, there's enough...
Speaker: room for everybody in the market, but there's wonderful things all over and we'd love to be able to offer them all.
Speaker: But sadly, there are items that don't end up gracing the galleries at Christie's, but are important and beautiful and just spectacular nonetheless.
Speaker: What was the last object that you saw or artwork that sent chills down your spine?
Speaker: It's an easy one because we're a little bit on the topic because it's, you know, we see really wonderful out-of-the-box lots that come across our desk for the exceptional sale.
Speaker: And, you know, one day it might be Josephine's Tabaret, which are also in the sale.
Speaker: But it's also a piece of incredible memorabilia, artwork such as this.
Speaker: I was shown this.
Speaker: by a fabulous consultant that we work with and immediately it just, I knew it'd be a showstopper and I said, you know, it's something we absolutely need to have.
Speaker: We have to tell the story.
Speaker: I'm not sure that necessarily everybody's so aware of this existing of sort of what it means as sort of a time capsule in the career of the Beatles and what an opportunity to tell the story.
Speaker: Okay, well, so let's talk about this amazing piece of music history.
Speaker: And listeners, if you'd like to see it, which I think you would, we have images online at themagazineantiques.com slash podcast.
Speaker: And it goes without saying on christies.com.
Speaker: If you look there for the exceptional sale on February 1st in New York.
Speaker: And by the way, Casey, this episode is releasing on January 24th.
Speaker: Do listeners still have time to come see the painting in person?
Speaker: They absolutely do.
Speaker: Our exhibition will open up on Friday here at Rockefeller Center.
Speaker: So I really encourage everybody to come on in and have a look around.
Speaker: Also have a look around at all of the fantastic sales that are on for Classic Week from Old Masters to Antiquities.
Speaker: It really is happening all at this time and the galleries are full.
Speaker: And if you're enjoying the podcast and you'd like to help us out, that is both very easy to do and it is very much appreciated.
Speaker: You can leave us a rating and maybe even write a little review about what you like about Curious Objects.
Speaker: And if you're thinking, you know, I'm not really a review writing kind of person, I get it.
Speaker: I have that feeling myself, but I can't tell you how easy it is to do and how grateful I will be.
Speaker: And hey, maybe I'll even read your review on the air like Amanda's who really enjoyed our recent episode about jewelry with Gem X and said, quote, I appreciated hearing the reverence about certain objects and their place in the history of the wearer's life.
Speaker: I will be looking at pieces in my life with new eyes and with a greater understanding.
Speaker: which I think is really wonderful.
Speaker: Thank you, Amanda.
Speaker: And thanks to everyone who's taken a second to tell a friend about Curious Objects or just to let me know what you think.
Speaker: You reach me on Instagram at Objective Interest and via email at CuriousObjectsPodcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: And it really warms my heart.
Speaker: All right, Casey, should we talk about the greatest band of all time?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Let's get into it.
Speaker: Okay, so let's start from the beginning.
Speaker: Why were the Beatles trapped in their hotel room in Tokyo?
Speaker: You set the stage so well, Ben, with your intro, which is that the Beatles were on one of the legs of their final world tours.
Speaker: It's the late spring, summer of 1966, visiting three countries.
Speaker: They're going from Germany to Japan and then on to the Philippines from there.
Speaker: This schedule had them touching down in Tokyo on June 27th, and they were booked to play at least two shows a day, I believe.
Speaker: at Budokan Hall.
Speaker: So there they were ready to jump into this leg of the tour.
Speaker: And there were serious security concerns, which came to fruition, actually, on the next leg in the Philippines.
Speaker: But what were they worried about in Japan?
Speaker: I think that we've all seen the photos, the scenes, the video, which is that the band was
Speaker: Absolutely thrashed by fans.
Speaker: The mayhem that would unfold at their arrival on these legs of the tour.
Speaker: I mean, this is absolutely its peak Beatlemania, right?
Speaker: This is peak Beatlemania.
Speaker: It's the screaming fans.
Speaker: It's the teenage girls.
Speaker: It's the tearing of the hair.
Speaker: It's all happening.
Speaker: And of course, I think that their tour leg in Japan, those authorities had absolutely seen this all unfolding in real time.
Speaker: previous to arriving in Japan, and there was a really sort of keen sense of making this unfold perfectly with the greatest level of crowd control that they needed to keep order.
Speaker: And they had also been the subject of death threats ahead of this as well during their Hamburg leg of the tour.
Speaker: Those death threats had been received ahead of their arrival, and those stemmed from the announcement that the concerts were going to take place at the Budokan.
Speaker: It was a venue that was reserved for martial arts.
Speaker: It was as well a shrine to Japan's war dead, particularly at a time that's
Speaker: only two and a half decades after the end of World War II.
Speaker: So there's certainly this idea that they want to show the new Japan, having the Beatles come play.
Speaker: But there were hardline nationalists who were not happy with the playing of the concerts at that venue.
Speaker: And they were receiving these death threats ahead of their concerts.
Speaker: So security was very tight and and tense, but extremely well planned.
Speaker: Even Robert Whitaker, who was the tour photographer, said how elegantly put together this part of the tour was.
Speaker: And as we know, you mentioned it, Ben, you know, the next leg was none was not easy in the Philippines.
Speaker: And they were quite vocal about it as well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Can you just tell us what exactly happened in the Philippines?
Speaker: Well, there was certainly their arrivals were delayed.
Speaker: They were detained.
Speaker: They were detained at sea.
Speaker: There was a famous snub of the first family, the Marcos.
Speaker: So it had really been sort of
Speaker: a tale of two tours in a way between their visits in Japan and then onward to the Philippines.
Speaker: And of course, the band went on TV upon their return in the UK to say just how pleasant the latter part of the tour had been, unfortunately.
Speaker: Okay, so they're in Tokyo.
Speaker: They're being confined to quarters for their own safety.
Speaker: It's for their own good.
Speaker: And they are in the continental suite at the Tokyo Hilton.
Speaker: And who is in the hotel room with them?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah, they're there with their manager, Brian Epstein.
Speaker: He'd been with the band since its inception.
Speaker: He would actually die the next year, unfortunately.
Speaker: There are tour promoters.
Speaker: There are members of the fan club coming and going.
Speaker: There are people bringing gifts, but most importantly is the tour photographer who I mentioned, Robert Whitaker, who was capturing much of what was happening during those 100 hours under lockdown in the Tokyo Hilton.
Speaker: So it's really his experience.
Speaker: capturing of the scene and relaying those moments that were able to really understand how this piece was created.
Speaker: And we're really lucky to have those photographs still survive.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, I mean, what do you think the mood was like in this hotel suite?
Speaker: It sounds like it was actually pretty active, but of course they're, they're stuck there for a long time with maybe, you know, not all that much freedom to do what they wanted.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I mean, we all know what a bit of lockdown feels like now.
Speaker: And I would like to say that I wish I had been able to produce something as lovely and beautiful as this, but I didn't.
Speaker: But it's
Speaker: You know, they're together, they're in confined quarters.
Speaker: You would think it might be tense, but I wonder if it wasn't a bit of relief.
Speaker: It was respite given the mayhem, the chaos of the previous leg.
Speaker: So to be a fly on the wall would be amazing to know exactly what the mood was like.
Speaker: But I find that maybe, maybe they were happy.
Speaker: Maybe they were quite pleased to have the downtime and to work on something creative.
Speaker: That certainly could have been the case.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so they did decide to work on something creative that was not musical, but to start painting.
Speaker: How did that come about?
Speaker: I mean, whose idea was it?
Speaker: And where did they even get the materials from?
Speaker: The folklore around this particular painting is that it was very likely a concert promoter who may have drummed up the idea to find a bit of a fun way, something to do for the fans, something to work on to possibly give to the fans.
Speaker: They decided to bring in some paints, acrylics, watercolors, smart paper.
Speaker: And they thought that maybe by doing a joint project, they could then give it as a gift or sell it for charity.
Speaker: So a few ideas were batted around in terms of what they might do to kill the time.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: They did this large piece.
Speaker: There were also some smaller pieces that were done potentially individually, but nothing along the same scale or collectively done by all four of them as this piece is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so, I mean, looking at this painting, to me, it looks in a lot of ways like a fairly typical 1960s abstract expressionist painting, but it has this title, Images of a Woman, which
Speaker: I have to admit, I'm not really seeing it.
Speaker: And I would love if you could tell me where that title comes from.
Speaker: Where are the women in this picture?
Speaker: Or just for listeners who aren't looking at it right now.
Speaker: I mean, what does this painting actually look like?
Speaker: What's going on in it?
Speaker: Yeah, but I couldn't agree more.
Speaker: It certainly does look completely abstract, but it's also immediately psychedelic as well, which is very sort of telling of the time in which it was created.
Speaker: But I do recommend for those listeners who haven't looked at it already to go look on the website to see it from anywhere.
Speaker: Each quadrant, in a way, you can certainly tell it's four different hands, as it should be.
Speaker: But, you know, you have four quadrants done, and each beetle has signed the center of the painting, which is actually a perfect circle and bare to the paper beneath.
Speaker: because they were arranged around a porcelain lamp which sat at the middle of the paper itself.
Speaker: And they sat in a dark room under a bit of cigarette haze and smoke and painted each of their quadrants.
Speaker: So when they removed the lamp, they were able to then sign the center of the paper adjacent to their artwork.
Speaker: But
Speaker: There's sort of negative space filled with vibrant oranges and pinks and purples and blues.
Speaker: You get to George's quadrant and it's a little bit more muted, some neutrals.
Speaker: So it's a real juxtaposition of different styles for each of them.
Speaker: the band members, but images of a woman, it's a title that came to it actually quite a bit later in its ownership during probably just around the eighties, nineties, where sort of the Japanese media picked up on the painting potentially coming to sale.
Speaker: And it had been dubbed with this title as a,
Speaker: Many believe that Paul's bit of the picture might resemble the female anatomy.
Speaker: So to put it quite delicately, but, you know, I have to say that, you know, there might be something to be said for Ringo's or even George's quadrant.
Speaker: There's certainly, if you look at it from a certain angle, you might make out a face, but it's a bit subjective, isn't it?
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Okay, well, I'm glad I'm not totally crazy.
Speaker: But I wonder how looking at this painting, how you would evaluate the Beatles skill as painters.
Speaker: You mentioned that Paul actually went to art school and didn't John study art a bit as well?
Speaker: They both did and made it quite far into A-levels, were really talented.
Speaker: But I think you could say that of all four, they were without a doubt born talented.
Speaker: But it seems as though Paul and John both worked at it and really did explore fine art in a certain extent.
Speaker: And that's on display here.
Speaker: So there's...
Speaker: There's certainly some, I can't speak necessarily to talented, not talented, but I think there's a real point of view and there's, you know, just beautiful colors and forms and shapes and something to be seen in it.
Speaker: And I mean, would you say that the style of the painting or the subject matter relates somehow to their music?
Speaker: Do you see any kind of connection there aesthetically between what they were creating musically and what they put down on the paper?
Speaker: so.
Speaker: I think that this is a really important moment in their music evolution and their journey.
Speaker: What's really interesting about sort of this session, as we're calling it, the 100 Hours and Lockdown in Tokyo, is that they were actually probably listening to, if not ordering, the sequence of the songs on their forthcoming
Speaker: album, which was called Revolver.
Speaker: It was definitely the most different of all of their albums.
Speaker: They were really coming along in terms of point of view, really experimenting with a lot of different sounds.
Speaker: George specifically was really influenced by Indian music.
Speaker: He's sort of experimenting with the sitar,
Speaker: They're also really sort of moving into psychedelics.
Speaker: I can say that for John and George because there's certainly a bit of backstory there to a year before this in which they've started to think about psychedelics and that is an experimenting with it.
Speaker: And, you know, that might be reflected here.
Speaker: It's certainly stylistically moving in that direction.
Speaker: Wait, do you think they were on psychedelics in the hotel room?
Speaker: I can't say one way or another.
Speaker: We do see from Robert's photographs that they're smoking, they're enjoying a drink, they're sort of huddled around this wonderful picture being as creative as they possibly can.
Speaker: And there's a few photos which I think are fantastic because you can see the reflection in the lamp at the center of the work coming along and really sort of becoming a cohesive work.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I wonder where they might have gotten LSD in Tokyo when they were stuck in their hotel room.
Speaker: You've mentioned a few times now these photographs by Robert Whitaker.
Speaker: And I wonder if we could talk about that a little more, because part of what's so fascinating about this painting is that we have the visual documentation of exactly how it was done.
Speaker: I mean, you can see them sitting around, you know, leaning over the paper at work, making this thing.
Speaker: And then when you look at the painting, I mean, it really brings it to life.
Speaker: It makes us feel so connected to that moment of creation.
Speaker: What, you know, what was he really trying to do there?
Speaker: What kinds of photographs was he taking?
Speaker: And what was the purpose of all of that?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He'd been hired to document the final tours.
Speaker: So certainly this being really a time capsule moment during that time.
Speaker: And then, of course, we have onward through to the U.S. tours as well.
Speaker: But, you know, these these images are quite different than many of the images that are published in his book, Eight Days a Week, which was about those final tour days.
Speaker: These are
Speaker: really intimate.
Speaker: They're dark, they're moody.
Speaker: I mentioned before they feel a bit fuzzy, they're through a bit of sort of cigarette smoke.
Speaker: They're wonderfully atmospheric, but they're capturing the mood.
Speaker: I almost...
Speaker: You can tell they might have a soundtrack because you do think about them listening to their music, what's coming down the line in terms of their albums.
Speaker: You have to think about, you know, what do those tracks sound like?
Speaker: It's Yellow Submarine, it's Eleanor Rigsby.
Speaker: The painting has a soundtrack and Robert Whitaker's imagery just reinforces that so much more.
Speaker: So he was also a firsthand observer.
Speaker: He was there in the rooms listening as would a fly on the wall.
Speaker: He is sort of in an interview in 2016, he said that they were really excited to come back to the painting actually during this time that they would go out to play their play.
Speaker: shows and say, you know, when they were done, well, let's get back to the painting already.
Speaker: So they're really, I think, quite excited to get back and have that release again and to sort of be working on this really creatively.
Speaker: Wow, that's so interesting.
Speaker: And one thing I love about these pictures is you can actually see the lamp that they've set in the center of the paper.
Speaker: I guess it was too dark in the hotel room or something.
Speaker: And so they placed this lamp with a circular base right in the center.
Speaker: And when you look at the painting, you can see now that's just a blank white disc where they've signed their names and it looks a bit like a bass drum or an LP or something.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I love that you think it looks like an LP.
Speaker: It would have worked perfectly as that.
Speaker: So absolutely.
Speaker: So it does.
Speaker: Those images really show the creative process here.
Speaker: You can imagine that lamp being lifted off at the last moment and the paint drying and then each of them coming into sign before this was then gifted to the president of the fan club.
Speaker: I wonder what happened to that lamp.
Speaker: That's a whole nother podcast.
Speaker: Well, yeah, whoever has that, get in touch with Christie's.
Speaker: So the painting is signed there in the middle by all four Beatles.
Speaker: And I, you know, I just wonder how rare it is to find memorabilia like this, which features all four of them, you know, involved in the same in the same object.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I think that we certainly have seen instances of signed memorabilia, certainly by all four or individually.
Speaker: What I think is really unique about this and sets it apart, of course, is that it is a work of art.
Speaker: It's by the hand of the artist, by the Beatles.
Speaker: So it's a bit different.
Speaker: So it makes it
Speaker: That much more challenging also to understand the pricing positioning for it as well.
Speaker: But we've looked to other instances where they have signed things.
Speaker: You know, Christie's was during our pop and memorabilia sales through the early aughts and into the teens was that we had instances of the Beatles signing, you know,
Speaker: bits of stationery from Buckingham Palace.
Speaker: And those would really excite the market in terms of having all four signatures together.
Speaker: Then you have to, we certainly look at just the memorabilia itself where it might be the drum skin from the Sgt.
Speaker: Pepper's album cover that is so iconic.
Speaker: And we look at that as well from a memorabilia standpoint.
Speaker: So these,
Speaker: these pieces come up and they certainly capture the imagination of both collectors of Beatlemania as well as just sort of fine art collectors hopefully in this case.
Speaker: Well, it's interesting.
Speaker: I mean, it must be a challenging question for you as an auctioneer to try to figure out what kind of estimate to put on a piece like this, which
Speaker: just really doesn't have any direct comparables.
Speaker: And it's obviously like very special and unusual piece, but I can't imagine how you would hope to predict what it, what collectors might think it would be worth spending on.
Speaker: But it's, so you've put an estimate of four to $600,000 on the piece.
Speaker: And I wonder if you could tell me something about how you came to that number.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Again, working with really incredible consultants who have their finger on the pulse of the market as well.
Speaker: So we certainly have partners here at Christie's who are observing trends in the market.
Speaker: And I think that the Beatles remain bankable.
Speaker: I'm sure we could say that from decade after decade as their music is even being reproduced by
Speaker: With the help of AI, even as, you know, as late as last year.
Speaker: So I think that there will be perennial interest in the Beatles.
Speaker: They are the most iconic and most influential musicians, artists.
Speaker: of many lifetimes, we continue to see prices for their memorabilia continue to appreciate over time.
Speaker: So we've been looking at those trends very closely.
Speaker: And generally speaking, music memorabilia is a really exciting space right now.
Speaker: We're seeing it with regard to instruments, again, memorabilia, ephemera from concerts and tours.
Speaker: And we are watching that space really closely.
Speaker: So pricing this, we felt there was precedent for Beatles memorabilia, particularly around the pieces I previously mentioned, signed pieces, the drum skin, etc.
Speaker: So we thought that we could comfortably place the estimate of $400,000 to $600,000 and gain the interest that will hopefully produce the bidders to drive it.
Speaker: to hopefully a really fantastic price.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: So talk to me about how you imagine this piece actually fitting into a collection.
Speaker: I mean, because it is so hard to categorize, you know, is it a work of art?
Speaker: Is it a bit of memorabilia?
Speaker: Is it, you know, I mean, it's sort of an essence of the Beatles, I guess.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's all of that, isn't it?
Speaker: It's all of that.
Speaker: And so I wonder what kind of collection you might imagine it fitting into.
Speaker: Well, I'd love for it and for it to go into a super fans collection, of course, because they'll appreciate it so much.
Speaker: But I also hope that the fine art collector, somebody who has a great contemporary collection, somebody who might have a great
Speaker: decorative arts collection will see sort of the beauty in it, the value in it, the story behind it, and be inspired by that.
Speaker: And maybe it's a new conversation piece for their collection.
Speaker: I also find that the Beatles themselves, well, they sort of exist outside of collecting categories, perhaps, because they have so much appeal to so many types of collectors as well, given their popularity and just how iconic.
Speaker: their music catalog is.
Speaker: So I hope that they would appeal not only to the Beatles collector, but to those who will just see beauty in it as a work of art.
Speaker: Well, fantastic.
Speaker: Casey Rogers, thank you so much for speaking with me about this and, and, and best of luck with the sale again on, on February 1st.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Ben, thank you so much for having me on for taking a deep dive on this piece.
Speaker: And yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker: Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati with social media and web support by Sarah Bellotta.
Speaker: Sierra Holt is our digital media and editorial associate.
Speaker: Our music is by Trap Rabbit and I'm Ben Miller.
