Colbert Show Portrait Prop Nets Money for Children’s Charity

When The Colbert Report, a half-hour TV-news commentary satire that follows The Daily Show, celebrated its one-year anniversary last month, the show decided to replace a mainstay set prop: the portrait-within-a-portrait of host Stephen Colbert.

The “painting,” which is actually a digital photo of Colbert doctored to resemble a painting, features a cross-armed, stern-looking Colbert standing in front of a picture that depicts a more urbane and suave-looking Colbert. So when the actual Colbert would come to stand by his set’s fake fireplace, he could be seen standing beside two versions of himself, virtually creating a portrait-within-a-portrait-within-yet-another-portrait of the cantankerous commentator.

And now, while another equally humorous portrait in the same vein now graces The Colbert Report set (the new one encapsulates three whole likenesses of Colbert), the old one has been auctioned off for the charity Save the Children on eBay. The charity, as its name suggests, is a globally-linked series of organizations that are involved in efforts to improve the lives of children in need throughout the world.

The auction, plagued early by fake bids, settled on a winning bid of $50,605 by Chad Walldorf and business associates of the Sticky Fingers chain of seventeen barbeque restaurants.

“We don’t know much about art,” said Walldorf, chain owner and business partner, talking to the Associated Press, “but [we] figured any time you can get two portraits for the price of one, then it must be a great deal…”

The portrait can now be seen at the chain’s Charleston, N.C. location. Why Charleston out of sixteen other viable options? The North Carolina capital city can be proud to list Colbert as one of its own — the city is his hometown.