Bonhams 1793 : BEERBOHM (MAX) Autograph self-caricature signed ("Max") and inscribed ("Moi-même – Rouen 94"), 1894; with an autograph letter signed (2)

Autograph self-caricature signed ("Max") and inscribed ("Moi-même – Rouen 94"), showing him full-length, full face, wearing suit, hat on head, stick in right hand, in a dandified pose, drawn on the recto of a quarto sheet of laid paper, lightly browned overall (the edges a little lighter in tone), folds strengthened and one corner professionally repaired, with other minor faults, 290 x 200mm., Rouen, 1894

Sold for £3,000 inc. premium

Footnotes

'A RATHER IDEALISED DRAWING OF MYSELF': A SELF-CARICATURE OF MAX IN THE 'NINETIES, written in response to his first fan letter requesting an autograph. It is sold with an accompanying autograph letter signed ("Max Beerbohm"), written from Rouen to an unidentified correspondent ("My dear Sir"): "I have much pleasure in sending you my autograph the more pleasure in that yours is the first application of the kind I have had. Also I send you a rather idealised drawing of myself" (the writing paper has his 19 Hyde Park Place heading crossed-out). Beerbohm's career as a caricaturist had been launched in 1892 when he was twenty, with publication in the Strand of a series of drawings of 'club types' which, he later confessed, dealt 'a great, an almost mortal blow to my modesty' ('When 9 was nineteen', Strand Magazine, October 1946, 51). Fame as an essayist, accompanied by a whiff of notoriety, came in April 1894 with publication of his essay 'A Defence of Cosmetics' in the first number of The Yellow Book. The first public exhibition of his caricatures was as part of a group show at the Fine Art Society in 1896; his first one-man show at the Carfax Gallery in 1901.

Category: Books / Books, Maps and Manuscripts

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