Sir Harry Lauder and the American Music Hall

posted by lauderfrost on November 4, 2003 at 7:01 am

In May 1966, a lady theater proprietor named, we think, Mrs. Glasgow, purchased three of our family portraits from our family home in Scotland which we were forced to sell to pay death duties. She said she was going to put them in her theater in, we think, California. Somehow, by 1980, they were stored in someone’s garage.

I am desperate to repurchase these 8 foot high full-length portraits (I was only 17 when they were sold for a song) and bring them home. If anyone knows anything, I would appreciate their assistance.

On another matter, (same family), I have here a sterling silver trowel used by [Sir] Harry Lauder to lay the foundation stone of the American Music Hall in San Francisco in 1910, It is beautifully inscribed and chased accordingly. Any ideas what it is worth or whether there would be a market for it. If I can locate our pictures, I might have to sell it to help buy them back!