Hand-Tooled Leather Saddle Gifted to Shirley Temple by Joseph Schenk

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23" (58 cm.) l. saddle. 25" l. including blanket. Of superb leather workmanship, the beautifully engraved hand-tooled saddle was custom made for the young actress, featuring Shirley's hand-tooled image with smiling expression and classic curly locks on each fender, her name in raised lasso-style lettering on the seat back, and a silver plaque inscribed "Presented to Shirley Temple by Joseph M. Schenk 1935". The saddle was custom made by the prestigious Los Angeles leather firm of Lichtenberger-Ferguson. The saddle includes all accessories including the saddle blanket, and is in excellent condition. Provenance: the saddle was gifted to Shirley by Joseph Schenk, Chairman of the Board at 20th Century Fox, on the occasion of another gift to her which was a Shetland pony. The pony was traveling to America aboard the May 1936 maiden voyage of the SS Queen Mary and then by rail to the Los Angeles train station. Shirley Temple wrote of this in her 1988 autobiography "Child Star". "Burdened with a specially-made western saddle with my face tooled into the leather skirts..., [the pony] was introduced to me in the railroad freight yards in downtown Los Angeles. A welcoming flower garland which it promptly tried to eat, was draped around the pony's neck...'Giddap!' I cried. The pony moved ahead but...the saddle started to slip sideways, me with it...A switch engine tooted just as a line of freight cars came screeching along an adjacent track. The pony whinnied, kicked and reared up, while I held on. �I'm going to call him Spunky', I shouted...'He's not afraid of anything.'" The saddle remained in the Shirley Temple family archives until 2015 when it was presented in the Love, Shirley Temple auction.