From 1868 to 1912, the Emperor Meiji ruled over Japan. Under his “Enlightened Rule,” the country began its modernization and achieved its status as a world power through sweeping political, social, and economic changes. The Meiji Period also saw achievements in Japanese bronze works exemplified by pieces such as the Meiji bronze tiger that we, the Savo Auctioneers, sold on July 1, 2010.
This highly detailed casting was approximately 20 inches long by 10 inches high and was made around 1910. Bidders on the phone and in attendance pushed the tiger to a final bid of $600 and had been described by one of our regular customers as “phenomenally an exotic and enthralling piece.”
Photos by Carlo Savo
More impressive, however, than the bronze sculpture was the former owner: the late Rene Black, one time manager of all restaurants at the Waldorf-Astoria.
In April 2010, we sold a small lot of items autographed by President Herbert Hoover. Those books, photograph, and correspondence named Rene Black as the recipient. The consignor, a relative of Rene, regaled us with a lauding synopsis of who he was, but it wasn’t until we received the Meiji bronze tiger that we understood just how amazing Rene Black had been. For the sculpture was accompanied by a copy of a eulogistic newspaper article that appeared in The Raleigh Times the week following Rene’s death in 1963. Rather than attempting to abridge this article, I have republished it below.
Rene Black: The ‘Rich Full Life’ Was Literally Tailor-Made for This Authority on Art of Living
By INEZ ROBB
Gourmets on five continents bowed their heads in sorrow and saluted their livers respectively last week when Rene Black, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the art of food and wines and the grace of good living, was gathered to his fathers.
The phrase “rich, full life” was literally tailor-made for Rene who, in his 83 years, had been everywhere, seen everything and known everyone who could claim to be anyone.
As maitre d’hotel of the famed old Central Park Casino and then, for many years, as manager of all restaurants of the Waldorf-Astoria, he taught former King Michael of Rumania to eat corn on the cob, encouraged the Crown Prince of Norway to dunk doughnuts in his coffee, played chess with Prince Feisal of Saudi Arabia, and helped the Duchess of Windsor with floral arrangements for her dinner parties.
Armed with battalions of the Waldorf’s best silver and gold-encrusted glass, he refought some of the world’s great battles in the Waldorf Towers with Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur, with the general’s dining room floor as terrain.
Rene had tested Winston Churchill’s cigars in cooperation with their owner; he had discussed the philosophic impact of its various dynasties on China’s history with Mme. Chiang Kai Shek. And his admirers, including former Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, credit him with so cosseting V. Molotov’s palate just after World War II that the big “nyet” man actually forgot himself long enough to say “da” to the Italian peace treaty.
In his 83 years, Rene Black lived a minimum of three dozen lives. What is more to the point, he lived them all at top pitch and with a gusto that most men are incapable of devoting even to one. He was — and this is the understatement of the year — an incredible man.
If I am something of an authority on Rene, it is because I unexpectedly devoted the summer of 1951 to his life and times. At the beginning of that summer, Henry Sell, the editor of Town and Country, asked me to do a profile of M. Black.
Henry hooked me by slyly saying that half a dozen other writers had failed the assignment which, on the surface, seemed simple enough. Anyway, I picked up the gauntlet. But after my first session with Rene, an always genial, urbane man, I realized why other writers had retreated in disorder.
To put it bluntly, Rene was blessed with total recall. His stream of consciousness was a caution. I felt that Proust, Joyce and Tom Wolfe would have been awed by the facts stored in Rene’s incomparable memory, all related in a conversational style that was a rich, fruity blend of the baroque style of Lucius Beebe and the polysyllabic cadences of Father Divine.
In honest fact, Rene was a latter day Leonardo da Vinci. He had dabbled in and mastered such diverse careers as those of world traveler, school teacher, dishwasher, prospector, bronc-buster, soldier, aviator (who, in World War I, carried messages to Papa Joffre and Gen. Petain), musician, painter, customer’s man, stock broker, restauranteur, raconteur, photographer, bon vivant and unrivalled expert on food and wines.
Rene was born in Chantilly, France. But he had been an American citizen for almost 60 years at the time of his death. His father was a breeder of race horses who took his small son with him when he traveled to Russia to sell his stock to its fabled Grand Dukes.
Educated to be a musician, a virtuoso of the French horn, his musical career was cut short when, at the age of 18, Rene made the mistake of flirting with the wrong girl. He gallantly challenged her admirer to a duel in which his right hand was almost severed from his arm. His hand and wrist, stiff as boards the rest of his life, could no longer make music.
Then began a wandering life, before he settled down in America, equipped to discuss the dental hygiene of Spain in 1906; the comparative merits of sunrises in Montevideo, Luxor and Taormina; the Zulus as the world’s premier baby-sitters; the fine points of prospecting in Nevada and the Klondike; the efficacy of the whale oil in nostrils, ears and on the chest as a human antifreeze agent in Siberian wastes; the conversational powers of the late Mayor Jimmy Walker; dance patterns of Andalusian gypsies and his experiences as a military instructor of the old Foreign Legion.
Rene Black was a man of whom it can truly be said his like will not pass this way again. Even the angel of death treated him gently. The angel touched him as he was watering his beloved rose garden, and Rene dropped peacefully among the flowers.
The Raleigh Times, Raleigh, N.C. Friday Afternoon, August 16, 1963
Truly, Rene Black was a remarkable man. It is a privilege to have been able to sell items that he once treasured. Were I to compile a top ten list of people passed with whom I’d like to dine, Rene Black would surely be among those named.
In the Photo
Head Chef of the Waldorf Astoria (left) conferring with Maitre d’Hotel Rene Black (right).
Life Magazine – January 1, 1944
Photographer: Alfred Eisenstaedt
RSS
