By Maureen Timm

As seen in The Antique Shoppe Newspaper, August 2007

The history and origin of the East Coast Cigar Store Indian Statue dates back to England in 1617 when small wooden figures called "Virginie Men" were placed on countertops to represent tobacco companies. These "Virginians" (the local English renditions of Indians) were depicted as black men wearing headdresses and kilts made of tobacco leaves.

Wood carving, or wood sculpture is one of the oldest and most widespread forms of art. Because of the near universality of trees, the relative simplicity of the necessary technology, and the relative durability of the product, wood carving has been practiced in almost all cultures from the earliest times.

Professional carvers often paid for transatlantic voyage by carving or maintenance of previously carved ship figureheads and masts during the crossing. From approximately 1760 to 1880, however, these figures were often life-size human forms, either realistic portraits of prominent historical figures or mythical ideal types, carved to stride, point, or look forward with serious mien.

The Cigar Store Indian Chief is a figure loaded with contradictions. The image of the Native American suggested divergent mystiques in the mind of the tobacconist's customers. First the natives introduced the tobacco plant to the English settlers and therefore remained connected to the product. However, by the late 19th century the natives were no longer the actual source of tobacco, which was raised by the labor of blacks and poor whites. Neither did these figures represent laborers in any way.

The proud chief, even if he was scouting or hunting, represented a savage correlative to the white gentleman who was the target market. Many of these figures offer cigars by hand, and are thus noble though emasculated servants. The Chief stood on the pavement as an idealized romantic, and enigmatic Other to attract the white businessman in need of a good smoke.

The first wooden Indians were both male and female, allowing the seller to choose which gender they wanted to help market their goods. When the wooden Indian craze first began, the female wooden Indian was used four times more often than the male wooden Indian. While female wooden Indians were occasionally carved with a papoose, and donned with a headdress of tobacco leaves instead of feathers, male figures were often dressed in the traditional war bonnets (a ceremonial headdress) of the Plains Indians.

The Indian "Chief' or "Squaw" suggested a romantic notion of the native based on the novels of James Fenimore Cooper, dime westerns, and other iconographic lore. As the introducer of tobacco to the Europeans, the Native American was ubiquitously linked to the industry. Thus a universal brand for tobacco was created.

Tobacconists did not have a monopoly on the use of anthropomorphic figures as storefront advertisement. While tea shops used idealized figures of Chinese men and women to enhance the authenticity of their product, a women's clothier may have placed a figure of a handsomely dressed woman out front. Other shops relied on a more esoteric aesthetic.

Although some figures were made of cast metal, the great majority were carved from wood by well trained artisans. Most of these carvers originally made ship figureheads. The market for storefront figures, driven by both the urbanization of America and the growing popularity of cigars, peaked just as the market for ship, figureheads, along with the clipper, waned.

The merchant customer often remembered the quality look and feel of a specific wooden Indian over the products of the merchant. These Indians would enhance the flavor of high class cigar friendly smoking rooms, increase the appearance of fashionable hotel lobbies, or go nicely on the sidewalk of the local tobacconist shop.

At the same time, since the carvers were all competing among themselves for the tobacconists' business, each tried to out-do the other in individuality, versatility and depth.

Simeon Skillin, 1716-78, reputed to be America's first sculptor, received important commissions, primarily for ship carvings, but also for shop signs and portrait busts. Most notable was the shop established by John Skillin, 1747-1800, and Simeon Skillin, Jr., 1757-1806, which enjoyed a nationwide reputation. Their works testify to the contemporary enthusiasm for allegorical abstraction and graceful neoclassical forms. The brothers' training and example influenced the style of subsequent wood carving in the United States.

Cigar Store Indians were designed to capture the attention of the people walking by, informing them that tobacco was sold inside. It is said that the average cigar smoker in America, in the late 1800s, could not read the words "Tobacconist Shop."

America was quickly becoming a social melting pot of people with diverse origins. The average 19th century American resident lacked a shared common language, and so the sidewalk cigar store Indian was vital for business.

Visual trade signs were essentially stand-ins for written sign-posts that might have been incomprehensible to potential customers, many of them immigrants.

Today, the best of the wooden Cigar Store Indian antique sculptures sell for as much as $100,000.

The value of anyone Cigar Store Indian is determined by its condition, the artistic integrity of the form and the quality and intricacy of the carving in that order. The decisive factor is the condition of the wood finish.

A Cigar Store Indian with its original paint is an almost impossible treasure to find and receives top dollar. Original Cigar Store Indian paint finishes are extremely hard to find because the sidewalk statues were repainted on a regular basis as a routine maintenance and marketing measure.

As marketing "sign-posts," they were meant to appear fresh and welcoming, not peeling and faded. The original paint was applied in the sculptors workshop using polychrome paint utilizing softer brush hairs than found on modem hand-brushes. The technique has produced a look and feel of satin with an almost translucent glow. The essence of the overall statue is light and more elegant than imaginable.

Determining the artistic integrity of a statue is as subjective as judging any piece of sculpture. Each artist has a unique style. Since most of the statues are unsigned, they can be attributed to a particular artist or his shop by identifying characteristic modeling techniques or body positions.

A few artists used Native Americans as models. Thomas J3rooks was associated by the name "leaners," Wooden Indians resting their elbows on log posts, barrels or oversized cigars. John Cromwell's trademark was a distinctive V-shaped headdress. French Canadian Louis Jobin tended to place his Cigar Store Indians with the left arm at chest level holding a robe and grasping a bundle of cigars in the right hand.

The man who probably made more Statues and perhaps most well known of all Sculptors in New York was Samuel Anderson Robb. His attendance at art school laid the ground work for gainful employment lasting for 60 years, from 1864-1924.

After his first wife died, Sam Robb began fashioning sweet-faced Indian Maidens holding roses similar to the kind he designed for his wife's tombstone.

Where are all the elegant Cigar Store Indians made by the American Sculptors? The value of these sidewalk signs of yesteryear is rising like the cost of cigars themselves because of the passion for cigars and related collectibles.

Many of these pieces have survived; attributed to the fact that after the First World War, when production stopped and many had been "brought inside" as a result of the 1910 urban-sidewalk-obstruction laws. Countless Indian statues were sold from the commercial streets and slowly disappeared. As America survived the depression most wooden Cigar Store Indians were broken and burned as firewood.

During the 1990's a renaissance was seen in cigars, and Cigar Store Indians became appreciated in America. The tradition of ladies and gentlemen enjoying a good cigar in the presence of our old wooden Indian friend was reborn and appreciated by all segments of society.