ART

M-I-C-K-E-Y, M-O-N-E-Y: The oldest known cel of Mickey Mouse, a 4 1/2-by-5-inch black-and-white image of the character playing a violin in a 1930 cartoon, sold Sunday at an auction in Burbank to an unidentified American buyer for $19,800, well above its pre-sale estimate of $10,000-$15,000. Although material from Disney cartoon shorts and features dominated the sale, works by two other artists set records. A 6-by-8-inch India ink drawing on rice paper from Winsor McCay’s “Gertie the Dinosaur” (1914) brought $8,580, far more than its estimate of $1,500-$2,500; and a group of 122 drawings from Jay Ward’s “Rocky and His Friends” went for $6,000, against a pre-sale estimate of $1,000-$1,500. Of the 361 lots offered, 345 were sold for a total of $810,000. The sale was conducted by animation art dealer Howard Lowery.