Sammy Davis Jr. Original Vintage Photograph c. 1965 – From His Personal Estate (Butterfield & Butterfield, 1991)

[AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER, Unidentified]  (active circa 1964–1967)

Sammy Davis Jr. in Performance, with Drummer (almost certainly Michael Silva).

[Las Vegas or Los Angeles], circa 1964–1967.

Medium and Support: Original vintage gelatin silver photograph on single-weight photographic paper. Black-and-white print with full tonal range and clean white borders. Davis is captured at right in mid-performance, eyeglasses on, microphone in his right hand, and left arm raised in his signature showman flourish; the drummer is seated at left behind a light-finish four-piece kit in formal white dinner-jacket attire with a black bow tie. Dramatic single-source stage lighting against a dark background, consistent with Davis's documented Vegas and Los Angeles showroom presentation of the period.

Format: Single photograph, professionally mounted in a floating acrylic frame and ready to display. Photograph 10¼ × 14 inches (260 × 356 mm). The oversize format—larger than the standard 8 × 10 press dimensions of the era—is consistent with a custom darkroom enlargement made for the subject's personal collection rather than wire-service distribution.

Condition: Very good. Photograph clean and unmarked on recto; full tonal range preserved; no tears, creases, or significant surface losses. White borders intact. Now sealed within the floating acrylic mount.

Provenance: From the Estate of Sammy Davis Jr. Sold at Butterfield & Butterfield, Los Angeles (7601 Sunset Boulevard), September 22, 1991, within lot numbers 2649, 2663, 2665, 2846, and 2929. Accompanied by the original Butterfield & Butterfield Certificate of Authenticity dated October 3, 1991, signed by Laura Smissaert, Director of Public Relations.

The photograph captures Davis at the height of his Vegas and Los Angeles showroom prime, almost certainly during one of the celebrated drum-and-vocal feature numbers that defined his stage act. The drummer is, by overwhelming probability, Michael Silva (November 12, 1925 – March 8, 1990), Davis's longtime touring drummer from the late 1950s through the 1970s. Silva appears on virtually every Davis live recording from this period, including Sammy Davis Jr. at the Cocoanut Grove (1963), That's All! (1966), and the Sands "Summit" sessions with Sinatra and Martin (May 1966). He is the only Black drummer documented as a continuous member of Davis's traveling unit during the mid-1960s. The formal white dinner-jacket band uniform, the light-finish drum kit, and the duet of singer and featured drummer are consistent with Davis's documented performances at the Sands Copa Room in Las Vegas, the Cocoanut Grove at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, and the Sahara Tahoe during this window.

The September 22, 1991 Butterfield & Butterfield sale is the single most important estate auction of Sammy Davis Jr.'s personal property ever held—a court-ordered liquidation prompted by an IRS tax lien that, after penalties and interest, exceeded seven million dollars by the time of Davis's death on May 16, 1990. The sale dispersed his jewelry, art, costumes, performance materials, and photographs into private hands. Items from this auction continue to be reconsigned by Bonhams Los Angeles—the institutional successor to Butterfield's, operating from the same 7601 Sunset Boulevard gallery—with the provenance line "Butterfields, The Estate of Sammy Davis Jr., September 22, 1991" used verbatim in their catalog descriptions.