Arguably the greatest golf artist in history, Anthony Ravielli, personally identified as an illustrator. He mastered what became his signature medium – the scrapboard (or scraperboard if you’re British). Though he was a selective, rather than prolific, artist, Ravielli produced some of the very best works of the medium.

Ravielli’s passion was golf. Though he also famously illustrated Bobby Jones at a later date, Ravielli’s most famous works were of Ben Hogan. The immensely private Ben Hogan did very little to spread information about his legendary golf swing. But when he finally did, he sought out Anthony Ravielli.

In 1957, Hogan approached Ravielli to illustrate Hogan’s golf swing for what would become one of the most important golf books of all-time: Ben Hogan’s iconic “Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf”. Despite almost 60 years of changes to the game of golf, Hogan’s “Five Lessons” is still a best seller today and approximately 1 million copies have been sold!

Ravielli went to Fort Worth to photograph Ben Hogan, his grip, and his swing. Those photos were the basis for Ravielli’s line drawing artwork that would eventually be the driving force in “Five Lessons”.

In this auction, we have the extreme privilege of offering Anthony Ravielli’s original drawings of Ben Hogan for “Five Lessons”. Make no mistake, these drawings are the absolute originals, and have been tucked away in a substantial private collection for many years. They have never been publicly displayed, and have never before reached the auction block. Later, more polished sketches of Hogan from Ravielli exist (and some have traded hands for tens of thousands of dollars), but those are simply reproductions (albeit authentic ones) or more refined later pieces of artwork for the book. No other sketches can lay claim to being Ravielli’s first illustrations of Hogan for “Five Lessons”.

Offered here is what we believe to be the crown jewel of Ravielli’s Ben Hogan drawings. Chapter 1 of “Five Lessons” was "The Grip." Well, offered here is a large piece of vellum containing 11 of Ravielli's original drawings of Hogan's grip. The 11 drawings on this single piece represent a large portion of Chapter 1 of "Five Lessons," and these images can be seen on pages 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27 of the book.

Ravielli's original sketch measures approximately 18 1/2" x 23 1/2" on vellum.

**Note: We believe that anyone who has seen these sketches will agree that they appear even more impressive in person. Some memorabilia (like trophies and medals) often appear even more beautiful in online photographs, but two dimensional sketches on vellum are quite a bit more difficult to present impressively in a photograph.