(WALT DISNEY STUDIOS / ANIMATION)
Courvoisier animation cel setup of Joe (aka Jose) Carioca from Saludos Amigos (1942)
Hand-inked and -painted Disney Courvoisier animation cel setup of Joe Carioca from Saludos Amigos (1942). Ink and gouache on celluloid over airbrushed background on paper. 240x240 mm; 9½x9C-inch (full sheet). Includes the original Courvoisier Galleries matte bearing the pencil inscription "Joe Carioca from Saludos Amigos" and the "Original WDP" stamp (heavily worn and not attached to cel). Provenance: Howard Lowery auction (protective bag with their label from a 1980s-1990s auction still present; private collection, Connecticut, acquired from the above. The cel setup was prepared by Courvoisier Galleries in the same fashion as their other early 1940s offerings (including those for Pinocchio and Dumbo), carefully trimmed to the shape of the character and adhered to an airbrushed presentation background with dry brush highlights. Saludos Amigos (which premiered in Brazil August 24, 1942 and February 6th, 1943 in the US) marks the debut of the charming green parrot Joe Carioca (renamed José in subsequent films), who appears in the film's final segment "Aquarela Do Brasil." Production cels from Saludos Amigos are by far the scarcest that exist of the character, with cels from the later The Three Caballeros and various TV appearances being far more common. Carioca gets a fairly scant amount of screen time in this very short (42-minute run time) feature; thus, relatively few cels of him were ever made, and far fewer have survived. The matching scene appears 38 minutes, 38 seconds into the film, shortly after we are introduced to the character. Donald Duck asks Joe: "Samba? What's Samba?" To which Joe replies "Ah, the Samba!" (this frame appearing during the word "Samba") -- which leads to a lively instrumental musical sequence.