"Aubrey Beardsley Sketch-Book", a circa early 20th Century s...

Hammer

£1,200

"Aubrey Beardsley Sketch-Book", a circa early 20th Century sketchbook containing 16 manuscript pen & ink sketches in the style of Aubrey Beardsley (of which 2 direct to inside front and rear cover of sketchbook, 5 direct to pages of sketchbook, 9 on paper mounted to pages of sketchbook), these presumed to be forgeries of Beardsley's drawings, inside front cover of album, above the pen & ink sketch bears the manuscript pen & ink address "114 Cambridge St, Warwick Sq, SW", below/towards bottom of sketch, bears signature "Aubrey Beardsley", in what appears to be the same hand and the same pen & ink, printed 2007 email re this sketch book from Linda Zatlin, authority on Aubrey Beardsley, author of the monumental 2016 two volume Aubrey Beardsley Catalogue Raisonné and monographs and other works on Beardsley, loosely inserted, stating "Mark Samuels Lasner sent me the information you sent him about the "Beardsley" sketchbook to get my opinion. When I first began working on the Beardsley Catalogue Raisonne, I studied this notebook. It belonged then, as I remember, to a woman who taught art (art history?) in London, and whose father had bought it in Philadelphia decades ago. I told her that the only thing in Beardsley's hand is the address. The rest is not by him. My thinking is this: I suspect he may have put his address on the notebook and lost or had it taken from him. Someone then made these sketches that are very similar to those in a sketchbook at Harvard's Houghton Library--the sketches in both are fakes. If there are other questions you have about this object, or with which I may assist you, please do not hesitate to contact me. Best, Linda Zatlin, Professor", the sketchbook approx. 12.5 x 12.5cm, cloth over boards, in later custom made clothbound flap book wrap, housed in custom made leather book form box, gilt title to spine "Aubrey Beardsley Sketch book". Many forgeries exist of Beardsley's drawings, some being fraudulent copies of genuine originals, some outright fakes, and still others might best be termed "pastiches," in which elements from existing works are combined to make a "new" image. Just who was responsible for specific deceptions is difficult to assess, the most likely culprits being three of Leonard Smithers's associates — John Black, Alfred Cooper, and H.S Nichols — as well as possibly Smithers himself, and at least one American working in the period 1920-50.