Bidding for this lot will end on Friday, March 27th. The auction will begin at 2:00 PM (PDT) / 5:00 PM (EDT) / 9:00 PM (GMT) and lots are sold sequentially via live auctioneer; tune in to the live streaming broadcast on auction day to follow the pace. Note other lots in the auction may close on Wednesday, March 25th or Thursday, March 26th.
A remarkable group of four original hand-painted production background paintings from Marvel's pioneering direct-to-video animated feature series, produced by MLG Productions in partnership with Lionsgate Entertainment.
The four backgrounds together map the geographic and tonal range of the film's world-building with striking clarity. Among them, the Wakanda Panther Statue is perhaps the most instantly recognisable, annotated MLG02 / Wakanda Panther Statue / S4 View Day, a hand-painted rendering of the great stone monument that guards the entrance to Wakanda. This is among the earliest animated screen interpretations of Wakanda ever committed to paint, produced more than a decade before Ryan Coogler's 2018 live-action Black Panther brought the nation to global attention.
The three remaining backgrounds depict the Triskelion corridor outside the S.H.I.E.L.D. infirmary, an aerial view of New York's Chelsea Piers at night, and the interior of a whaling ship's pilot house under a star-filled sky. Each carries intricate production detail, layered architectural information, precise spatial depth, the texture of real locations, each one a fully realised world that the camera visited for a moment and moved on from. On screen, a blink. On the wall, a gorgeous painting!"
Two of the four pieces carry the production code MLG02, and the presence of Wakanda iconography strongly positions them within Ultimate Avengers 2: Rise of the Panther (2006). The remaining two carry no production coding, and while their subject matter is consistent and present in either film in the series, they are most likely all companions from the same production.
Each piece is presented in its original mat and frame and accompanied by a Marvel Certificate of Authenticity from MarvelArtworks confirming it as a unique original production background painting used directly in the making of the film. The certificates carry the series title Ultimate Avengers: The Movie, a standard designation used across the Marvel Artworks programme.
Original painted backgrounds from the Marvel Animated Features series rarely surface, and a group of four from a single production spanning interior and exterior, New York and Wakanda, is a genuinely uncommon offering. These pieces come to auction for the first time, passed directly from the collection of a dedicated enthusiast who assembled them with real care.
Estimate: $400 - 800