Tag: #Oscar Wilde

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Bonhams

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Bonhams Catalogue, February 24, 1998.

No apostrophe in Bonhams, apparently.

In my last blog post about a picture that was Not Oscar, I related the story of how an image purporting to show a young Wilde in an assembly of pupils at Portora Royal School, had to be withdrawn from an auction at Bonhams in 1998.

Merlin Holland explained the reasons for the removal in his recent book After Oscar (pp. 576-578), also confirming that the withdrawal was made immediately prior to the sale.

On account of this last fact, I was asked whether the late decision had left Bonhams time to amend the offering of the withdrawn items, or had the catalogue already been printed?

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Not Oscar

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Contemporary newspaper report of the photograph.
(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Withdrawn From a Bonhams Auction, 1998.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.

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Announcement · News

Wilde on Broadway

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TWO NEW OSCAR WILDE PRODUCTIONS
Dorian Gray and Salome on Broadway

Coming to Broadway in New York this Spring are two new productions of Oscar Wilde works—and each for a limited time only.

The Picture of Dorian Gray at the Music Box Theatre, and Salome at The Metropolitan Opera.

See below for details.

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Oscar Brought To Life

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The AI Oscar Wilde
From the Mystery Scoop Channel

The series History Brought to Life on You Tube’s Mystery Scoop channel uses the power of AI technology to turn a single still image into stunning animations for an immersive glimpse into history—it is a labor of love that demands immense effort, creativity, and talent to bring each figure to life.

I have been watching the impressive series of historical characters and finally Oscar Wilde has arrived in Volume 11.

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Announcement · Article

Anselm Kiefer

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Winterlandschaft | Anselm Kiefer, 1970
Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on paper 17 x 14 1/8 in.

The Ashmolean Museum
ANSELM KIEFER: EARLY WORKS
February 14—June 15, 2025

Next week the University of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum1 opens a major exhibition of the German visionary Anselm Kiefer, which it describes as “a landmark survey of the artist’s work produced between 1969-1982.”

So why should this interest Wildeans?

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Three Times Tried—II

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Cover page of The Spirt Lamp, Vol. 2 No. 4. December 6, 1892.
From The Spirt Lamp, Vol. 2 No. 4. December 6, 1892.

The New Remorse

Fourth in series of articles adapted from a larger text by the present author that appeared in the July 2022 (No. 61) edition of the ‘The Wildean’, the journal of the Oscar Wilde Society.

Previous articles in this series

  1. A handwritten sonnet by Oscar Wilde appears on the Antiques Roadshow,
  2. A critical analysis of the poem.
  3. Three Times Tried—I: The poem’s first appearance as Un Amant De Nos Jours.

In this article we shall look at the second appearance of Wilde’s sonnet in 1892.

As had been the case with its first publication, five years earlier in The Court and Society Review, it was Wilde’s probable intention for the sentiment to herald a new romantic interest.

On this occasion, the poem reemerged shortly after he met his preeminent male paramour Lord Alfred Douglas—who was to become Wilde’s lover and a consequential influence over his life, work, and eventual fate—indeed the poem was republished by Douglas himself not long after Wilde had presented it to him.

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Oscar Wilde Poem — Video

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THREE TIMES TRIED

First in series of articles adapted from a larger text by the present author that appeared in the July 2022 (No. 61) edition of the ‘The Wildean’, the journal of the Oscar Wilde Society.

The above appraisal is from a 2015 edition of the U.S. version of Antiques Roadshow and features a handwritten document by Oscar Wilde dating from 1899 which had recently come to light.1

The item is a single page containing a complete manuscript sonnet, which Wilde also signed and dedicated to an American journalist named Christian Gauss—a young man with whom he had become acquainted during his post-prison exile in Paris.

Everything we know about the document, from the visual evidence and provenance of its inherited ownership, to accounts of Wilde’s encounters with Gauss and other gifts he made to him, attests to its authenticity.

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Sew to Speak

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Blue Valley Blade, (Seward, Nebraska), August 23, 1882, 4
SEWING MACHINES IMPROVE SPEAKING

During Oscar Wilde’s 1882 tour of North America, his name was used arbitrarily to sell any number of products—there are several such advertisements on this page.

Above is another example from the Davis Sewing Machine Company asserting that Oscar’s perceived lack of ability as a “talkist” was the result of his not having purchased one of their sewing machines. It’s true that commentators noted Oscar’s untutored monotone delivery, but it’s not clear how owning a Davis sewing machine would have developed his diction—with or without basting.

Needless to say, there is no record in Oscar’s tour expenses of a sewing machine.

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Tea in China

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George du Maurier, ‘The Passion for Old China.’
Punch, May 2, 1874, 189.
TEA-POTS AND DOTING COUPLES

My recent post about Whistler’s long ladies of the six marks featured the famous Du Maurier cartoon, from Punch magazine in 1880, about a couple longing to live up to the blue china of their ‘Six-Mark Tea-Pot’. The cartoon was widely understood to be channeling Wilde because he is reported to have done the same thing in his rooms at Oxford.

But doting couples cradling tea-pots was nothing new even then.

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