Lot 1569
‡SIR MAX BEERBOHM (1872-1956)
OSCAR WILDE
Signed mX upper right and inscribed with sitter's name lower left, watercolour and pencil
22 x 16.7cm.
Provenance: Acquired from the artist, possibly as a gift, by his close friend Oliver W. F. Lodge (1878-1955); and thence by descent. Lodge was the son of the distinguished physicist, Sir Oliver Lodge (1851-1940). The son was a poet, author, dramatist, artist and architect and probably met Beerbohm through the Chelsea Arts Club. He was friends with the artists and writers in the Bloomsbury Group (especially Duncan Grant), as well as Eric Gill and David Jones.
Wilde was a favourite target for Beerbohm's mordant caricatures and they had known each other since 1888, when they were introduced by Herbert Beerbom Tree during Beerbohm's schooldays at Charterhouse. Despite a friendship founded on companionship as much as upon literature and not at all strained by the difference in their ages, Beerbohm distanced himself from Wilde after the latter's notorious trial and imprisonment (1895-1897). It is possible that Beebohm was eager to avoid any personal implications arising from Wilde's homosexuality. After Wilde's death in 1900, Beerbohm mustered the comment that he was `very sorry indeed` for his friend's passing. He observed that `[Wilde] was such an influence and an interest in my life` and asked Reginald Turner in Paris to `please lay out a little money for me in flowers for his grave..`.
This work is similar to a slightly larger but unsigned portrait sold at Bonhams, London , October 21st 2015, lot 70.
