Vintage matte-finish 13 x 10 photo as she appeared in the 1934 film The Girl from Missouri, signed and inscribed in fountain pen to a staff member of the MGM photo lab, "To Harvey — with a heart full of good wishes‚ Jean Harlow.” The reverse bears an MGM studio stamp crediting the photo to Frank Tanner. In very good to fine condition, with two tiny pin holes and some trivial surface loss to the borders, a crease to the upper left background area, and fading to handwriting lending it poor-to-moderate contrast.
Accompanied by a lengthy letter of provenance from a prior owner: “I acquired this in the early 1970s from a woman named Margaret Aulbach. Margaret was previously married to a man whose father had worked in the photo lab at the M-G-M studios and, while there, had received a number of signed large format photographs from the studio's stars, some signed, some not. Margaret's side hustle was custom framing. About the time I acquired this, I was also represented by an art gallery and was selling art, which by necessity, had to be framed. Both Margaret and I were living in the Newhall/Valencia area just north of Los Angeles and I found her in the phone book. She handled most of my framing. My artwork often incorporated movie stars and we began a conversation that ended with Margaret asking me to sell her ex-father-in-law's photos. The photos were Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, Nelson Eddy, and Robert Montgomery. Only the Gable, Crawford, and Harlow were signed. The deal was that if I could sell the other photos, I could have the Harlow. I readily made the deal and kept the Harlow, Crawford, and Gable, and sold the other two, but gave Margaret money for them all. Later I would sell all but the Harlow.”
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