Rockwell illustration art for Elgin watch ad earns $250,000

She Said It for a Lifetime (Man Receiving Gift Watch), an Elgin Watches advertisement illustration by Norman Rockwell (American, 1894-1978), 1926, brought $250,000 in Heritage Auctions’ November 8, 2018 American Art Auction in Dallas.

The image was created as an Elgin Watch Company advertisement that appeared first in the June 1926 edition of Ladies’ Home Journal, and then in The Saturday Evening Post Magazine’s July 17, 1926 edition.

Through Rockwell’s image, Elgin tapped into the progressive idea of the purchasing power of women several decades before many other companies embraced the idea.

According to the Heritage Auctions catalog, “She Said it for a Lifetime (Man Receiving Gift Watch) serves as a primary example of Rockwell’s skillful ability to present an enduring and heartwarming image that continues to resonate with the public even decades after its creation.”

This 20”-by-27” oil-on-canvas painting was exhibited at the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, from October 2011-April 2018.

With She Said it for a Lifetime (Man Receiving Gift Watch), Rockwell once again succeeds in capturing the nostalgia of a simpler world that is as familiar today as it was nearly a century ago when he painted this beguiling work.

The painting was inherited directly from the Estate of Robert E. Dreher and is from the Collection of Bradley and Susan Schuchat, his descendants. The proceeds are being donated to fund college scholarships, one of which is a graduate nursing scholarship at the University of South Florida. The scholarship funds nurses furthering their education in the Masters, Doctoral of Nursing and Ph.D. programs and was established in memory of their daughter, Diane.

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