Aubrey Beardsley Record Sale

In their auction of fine books & manuscripts lat Sunday, November 16, Skinners the Boston saleroom sold two Aubrey Beardsley illustrations. The first, The Climax (pictured right) fetched $213,300, well over its $15/20,000 estimate; the previous record for a Beardsley drawing was $159,600. A second Beardsley illustration – A Platonic Lament sold for $142,200, it had an estimate of $15/20,000.

The original pen and ink drawings were provided as illustrations for Oscar Wilde's controversial Salome: A Tragedy in One Act. After being exhibited in Europe they were sold in a sale at Anderson Galleries to an agent acting on behalf of a collector. Nine of the thirteen drawings were eventually donated to the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University. The two lots sold at the auction remained a mystery to Beardsley scholars and collectors for more than eighty years. The pictures were discovered in a Boston-area home hanging on a bathroom wall.

Beardsley died at the age of 25 of tuberculosis. Given that his career was cut so short, his works are very rare, but they are also very beautiful, making them all the more sought after by collectors.