(Author’s Collection)
Not a Photograph of a Young Oscar
Withdrawn From a Bonhams Auction, 1998.
In his recent retrospective After Oscar, Merlin Holland recalls how he was often called upon to verify ostensible photographs of Oscar Wilde.
One such photograph purported to show a young Oscar in an assembly of pupils at Portora Royal School.
Merlin relates the story in After Oscar (pp. 576-578) of how the image was discredited several different ways, resulting in its late withdrawal from an auction at Bonhams on February 24, 1998.
The bogus picture is now rarely seen.
Fortunately, however, when reading Merlin’s account I recalled that I had saved a newspaper article about the forthcoming auction at the time—and it shows the photograph that was to appear in the sale. This clipping is reproduced as the featured image above.
The Big Picture
As we now know, doubts were cast about the photograph.
Merlin confirms that part of the discrediting related to the configuration of the school hall in which the photograph was taken—it was actually that of Bedford School, and not Portora.
Therefore, as the background showing the hall had been cropped from my newspaper clipping, I have retrieved a fuller version from the archives of The Daily Telegraph.
This is dated February 23, 1998—the day before the auction—when it was reported that the photograph was to be withdrawn from the sale.
© John Cooper, 2026
After Oscar: The Legacy of a Scandal is published by Europa Editions.
UK Edition (2025, left): After Oscar: The Legacy of a Scandal
US Edition (2026, right): After Oscar: The Legacy of a Scandal
pp. 700, Hardcover.
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