The (fourth) power of collecting: record for the Rosa Bella sleigh
One of the emblems of film history has been auctioned off, becoming the second most expensive object ever
3' min read
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3' min read
The 'Rosa Bella' toboggan that Orson Welles (1915-1985) in his 'Citizen Kane' (1941) uses as a device to narrate the protagonist's life has just become the second most expensive prop ever sold at auction. In fact, one of the last (three) remaining examples still in circulation was sold for $14.75 million on 16 July 2025 by Heritage Auctions, an auction house specialising in film and music memorabilia. A price worthy of the legend of which this pinewood toboggan is the bearer, 'a little toy of a great man's deceased past', as Welles himself called it. The 'Rosa Bella' in the Italian version is the original rosebud stencil on the toboggan.
Price and features of the 'Rosebud' sledge from Quarto Potere
.The object comes from the personal collection ofGremlins director Joe Dante (1946), who received it in 1984 from someone on the crew following the emptying of a warehouse at the film production company RKO Pictures ('Citizen Kane', 'The Great Dictator', among others). As a shrewd collector, Dante had the sled radiocarbon analysed for authenticity (the documentation was included in the lot for sale by Heritage Auctions).
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The other 'Rosa Bella' sleds: one was bought by Spielberg
.What about the other two Rosebud sleighs that have come down to us? One, the so-called Bauer sleigh, made of pine wood like the one just passed in the auction, had its heyday at Christie's in 1996, with a hammer price of $233,500. It was the specimen that a young Charles Foster Kane used in the snow game scene. It was named after Arthur Bauer, a 12-year-old boy in 1942 who won it in a competition organised by RKO. That was also the year the film won its only Oscar - for screenplay - out of no less than nine nominations.
The second, made of balsa wood, was instead purchased by Steven Spielberg in 1982. In this case, it was a security guard who retrieved it from a pile of rubbish outside an RKO depot. The director of Jurassic Park bought the relic at auction at Sotheby's for $60,500. For many years the sled kept the filmmaker company in his office, before he generously donated it to the Museum of the Academy in 2018.
In fact, there is another Rosebud sleigh. At the end of the filming of 'Citizen Kane' it was given to Orson Welles's co-writer, Herman Mankiewicz. It was not a prop, i.e. an object created especially for the scene, but an actual artefact from the 1840s. It had different features to the sled in the film. Mankiewicz kept it for decades; it was later sold at auction by Bonhams for $149,000, in 2015.
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