'Dogs Playing Poker' Sold For Almost $600K

(New York) At Doyle's auction house, an unidentified private collector purchased two paintings of dogs playing poker for a staggering price of $590,400.


A Bold Bluff by Cassius Coolidge (1844-1934)
The two paintings, "A Bold Bluff" and "Waterloo: Two," were from a 1903 series of dogs playing poker by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge and were estimated to draw bids in the $30,000 to $50,000 range. Obviously, the estimates were wrong.

An interesting sidelight about Coolidge is that he's also the creator of life-size cutouts into which one's head is placed, allowing the person to be photographed as a character or animal. I also should mention that I've got a dogs playing poker tapestry somewhere. It's probably out in the garage in a box with some bicycle parts. Or, maybe it was a dogs playing pool tapestry. Oh, well, nevermind.