On the 125th anniversary of Oscar Wilde’s death, the Irish author will be celebrated in a London sale that promises some revelatory items.
Among the most anticipated lots at the February 18 sale at Bonhams are two portraits from a series of photographs of Wilde taken by Napoleon Sarony in New York from 1882 to 1993.
The images have become iconic portrayals of Wilde, though they pre-date his literary career, as a young, stylish society wit.
Two cabinet cards by Sarony go into the sale, on February 18, with high estimates of £5,000 each.
Letters, with lines as good as you would expect, carry estimates of up to £8,000.
But it is Wilde’s published works that are expected to bring in the most money.
A signed 1891 edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray could make as much as £18,000.
An original, signed Oscar Wilde manuscript with a letter, also signed by Andre Gide, his French protege is among the star items in this exciting sale. Image courtesy of Bonhams.
A page from On the Role of the Artist signed by Wilde and with a letter by French writer Andre Gide (with whom Wilde was friendly while in Paris and Algeria) carries a £25,000 high estimate.
A signed copy of The Ballad of Reading Gaol from 1898 could make £15,000.
Perhaps the most emotionally affecting item is a 77-franc bill for the flowers at Wilde’s funeral in Paris, where he died, aged 46, exiled from his adopted homeland and destroyed by the hard labour he endured in Reading Gaol.
In a statement, Matthew Haley of Bonhams, said: “Oscar Wilde was an extraordinary figure, a great wit, a 19th-century scandal, and seen by some as a martyr for gay rights, whose life and work have a perennial appeal from the stage to the screen.”
The 156-lot sale is comprised of the collection of Jeremy Mason, a bibliophile who collected Wilde from 1970 and whose collections have previously provided major Wilde sales.
In November last year, an annotated copy of Wilde’s play Salome was auctioned in Paris for EUR 825,000 (around £715,000) to become the most valuable item by the playwright and poet ever sold. It easily surpassed a EUR 150,000 (around £130,000) high estimate.
