Oscar Wilde was born at 21 Westland Row, Dublin (now home of the Oscar Wilde Centre, Trinity College), the second of three children born to Anglo-Irish Sir William Wilde and Jane Wilde, two years behind his brother William (“Willie”). Wilde’s mother had distant Italian ancestry, and under the pseudonym “Speranza” (the Italian word for ‘hope’), wrote poetry for the revolutionary Young Irelanders in 1848; she was a lifelong Irish nationalist. She read the Young Irelanders’ poetry to Oscar and Willie, inculcating a love of these poets in her sons. Lady Wilde’s interest in the neo-classical revival showed in the paintings and busts of ancient Greece and Rome in her home. Reference: Wikipedia
Oscar Wilde,1882 Napoleon Sarony American, born Canada
Inscription: inscribed in negative, recto BR: “23””; stamped in golden ink on mount, recto BL: “Sarony”; printed in golden letters on mount, recto BC: “OSCAR WILDE. // copyright 1882, by N. Sarony. // NEW YORK.”; inscribed in black ink on label affixed to mount, verso TC: ” Oscar Wilde // 1854 – 1900 // Irish author // HENRY Y. PORTER {stamped]”
Reference: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Oscar Wilde; Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas by Gillman & Co gelatin silver print, May 1893 5 3/8 in. x 3 7/8 in. (136 mm x 97 mm)
Reference: National Portrait Gallery
Napoleon Sarony PORTRAIT OF OSCAR WILDE. ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHY WITH A FRAGMENT OF MANUSCRIPT. [NEW YORK, 1882] Albumen print, laminated on cardboard from the studio Saroni (206 x 104 mm), bearing on the bottom left, engraved in the negative, “n ° 3″. Under the photograph, this note from the hand of Wilde: ” There is a fatality about all good resolutions.They are invariably made too soon “, from his book ” Phrases and Philosophies for the use of the youngs “, published in December 1894 . all in a modern wooden frame magnifier.
Oscar Wilde left England for the United States on December 24, 1881. He stayed there for a year and gave more than 140 lectures. On this portrait, taken during this tour, Wilde is dressed in a coat that he held dear and that his brother had to sell when he was in prison: “I wore it throughout the trip to America, she attended at all my first, she knows me perfectly and I really want to find her “( Album Pleiade , pp. 94-95).
Sold for EUR 6,500 at Sotheby’s in 2011
Chromolithographed print. Full-length portrait of the writer and poet Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) published by Vanity Fair on 24th May 1884. Harry Beard Collection.
Reference: © Victoria and Albert Museum
GIDE (ANDRÉ) Oscar Wilde, A Study… With an Introduction and Bibliography by Stuart Mason, NUMBER 2 OF 50 COPIES on handmade paper signed by Mason, order form sheet loosely inserted, publisher’s half parchment, t.e.g., glassine wrapper [Mason 652a], Oxford, Holywell Press, 1905–MASON (STUART, pseudonym of C.S. MILLARD) A Bibliography of the Poems of Oscar Wilde, NUMBER 18 OF 25 LARGE PAPER COPIES, numbered and signed by the author, institutional blindstamp on title, shelfmark in ink on verso title, publisher’s cream cloth, slightly soiled, label removed from spine [Mason 657], E. Grant Richards, 1907–SHERARD (ROBERT HARBOROUGH) Oscar Wilde. The Story of an Unhappy Friendship, publisher’s paper-backed cloth, sides gilt, rubbed [Mason 670], Privately Printed at the Hermes Press, 1902 –YOUNG (DAL) Apologia pro Oscar Wilde, first issue [Mason 679], William Reeves, [1895]; Another copy, second issue [Mason 679], [1895], FIRST EDITIONS–BENDZ (ERNST) Oscar Wilde, a Retrospect, ONE OF 400 COPIES, bookplate of W. MacDonald Kay, in morocco-backed cloth slipcase, Vienna, Alfred Hölder, 1921–The Woman’s World. Edited by Oscar Wilde, folio, January, 1888–Wilde v Whistler Being an Acrimonious Correspondence on Art Between Oscar Wilde and James A. McNeill Whistler, ONE OF 400 COPIES, Privately Printed, 1906–After Berneval. Letters of Oscar Wilde to Robert Ross, ONE OF 400 COPIES, on handmade paper, publisher’s cloth-backed boards, 8vo, Beaumont Press, 1922–[BLOXHAM (JOHN FRANCIS)] The Priest and the Acolyte, original plain wrappers, Privately Printed for Presentation Only, [?c.1894], plates, illustrations, original wrappers (some soiling and chipping), small 4to unless otherwise stated (10)
Sold for £ 875 inc. premium at Bonham’s in 2014
Portrait of Oscar Wilde; head and shoulders three-quarter to right. 1907 Soft-ground etching Producer namePrint made by: Hermann Struck. German Date 1907
Reference: © The Trustees of the British Museum