VanOeyen's Ruth eyes photo, your opinions please

[billyb]

Hi All,

I have been curious about how a certain Babe Ruth photo would be received, and now that the photo was sold in a recent auction, I hope to now get everyones opinion on, what I think, is a very rare photo. The reason I am asking, is that the photo was not described in the auction, with all its provenance, so the true value or interest, or non interest, was never obtained. I do not fault the auction house, as unforeseen circumstances caused the documentation to be misplaced, thus the entire provenance surrounding this photo was never described. So not knowing what interest this photo may have generated, leaves a big empty feeling for the owner, and myself, the researcher. So I am reaching out to the very best at judging original press photos, who I know can give me a fair and honest opinion.

Here is the photo/photos in question.

Photo is titled on back as Babe Ruth's eyes. As you can see, the back stamp is dated Oct 6, 1933. No other information on the back. The photo came with a tissue attached to protect the image. The Ruth's eyes photo was accompanied by two other photos, one where Babe is giving himself an eyewash, and the other is Babe showing off his legs (from the knee down). The latter two photos I found exact images in the Western Reserve Historical Society, Louis VanOeyen collection. A third image (also in the same VanOeyen Collection), was a portrait of Babe, where the photographer must have created the photo of the Ruth's eyes from this portrait. I obtained a list of Babe Ruth photos done by VanOeyen, and found 6 photos were taken that day, but the three I described were the ones chosen, and found on the front page of the Cleveland Press, dated Oct 5, 1933.

The article relating to the photos was a question asked by the reporter, regarding Ruth's decline in his hitting. The rumors suggested that maybe it was his legs, or his eyesight. In response, Babe showed that reporter how he cares for his eyes and even posed for a close photo (the protrait pose), seemingly daring someone to find something wrong with his eyes, then lifted his robe to show his legs proving there is nothing wrong.

After looking at this photo for over a year, I can see the determination in Ruth's eyes, trying to beat back the rumors, trying to hold onto his career. At the time, there was over 635 home runs behind those eyes.

Checking with the WRHS, I discovered that Getty owns the negatives to the portrait and the eye wash photos, but the WRHS still owns the right to the Ruth's legs. The actual negative to the Ruth's eyes photo, I have not found, and believe it does not exist any longer. Also, these photos, although, on the front page of the Cleveland Press, it seems that copies of these photos were never distributed to other newspapers or any other media. As this appears to be just an in-house article, no distributions were sent out. So the Ruth's eyes photo, done by VanOeyen, it appears, to be the only media copy in existence. Once it is gone, that is it.

The first person I contacted was Henry Yee who stated, "we may have something special there". Since then, I have contacted a few board members to get their opinions, and received mixed reviews. So I thought, this would be a great photo to have a discussion about.

I am not trying to compare this photo to Conlon's "eyes photo", as it is not at all comparable to Conlon's iconic beauty. But VanOeyen must have thought a lot about this photo to attach a tissue to protect the image. I believe this photo has its own provenance, its own story.

I truely hope the winner of these photos was a board member, and if so, hope to pass the evidence on to him. So I ask you to please give us an honest opinion of these photos, polka dot pajamas and all.

Ruth's eyes, by Van Oeyen.jpg

Babe Ruth eyes back 003.jpg

Ruth article pg 1 .jpg

Ruth Article Pg 2369.jpg


Portrait from WRHS
Hist Soc Ruth eyes neg photo428.jpg

Other 2 photos on front page, copies from WRHS I did not attach
Babe Ruth eyewash.jpg
Babe Ruth's feet 2.jpg