platinum print, on a hand-ruled mount, signed and annotated on the mount, a Pen and Ink Floral Border by BEARDSLEY affixed to the mount, 1894; attached to a folio leaf from A. E. Gallatin’s Aubrey Beardsley’s Drawings: A Catalogue and List of Criticisms (New York and London, 1903), a platinum print reproduction of Beardsley's Drawing of Raphael affixed to the interior, signed and annotated by Evans, letterpress text, framed, Buhl Collection and Guggenheim Museum exhibition labels on the reverse

Collection of the photographer

The Anderson Galleries, New York, The Library of Frederick H. Evans of London, 20-21 October 1919, Lot 19A

Sotheby’s London, The Book as Art: Modern Illustrated Books and Fine Bindings, Part II, 21 November 1995, Sale LN5699, Lot 157

James Danziger Gallery, New York, 1996

New York, Guggenheim Museum, Speaking with Hands: Photographs from The Buhl Collection, June - September 2004, and 4 other international venues through 2007 (see Appendix 1)

Jennifer Blessing, Speaking with Hands: Photographs from The Buhl Collection (Guggenheim Foundation, 2004), pp. 78 and 214 (this print)

Beaumont Newhall, Frederick H. Evans (Aperture, 1973), p. 11

Anne M. Lyden, The Photographs of Frederick H. Evans (The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2010), pl. 112

This lovely platinum print is rendered in Evans's characteristic masterful style. The tones are all expertly handled and transition from deep black to creamy white. The photograph is set within the lush ink and wash drawing by Beardsley, and this presentation sets forth a portrait of the man and his work. The photograph is essentially in excellent condition. When examined in high raking light, some faint linear scuffs can be seen on the surface. None of these breaks or even indents the emulsion. Nor do they diminish this print's considerable aesthetic impact. On the mount Evans has written: 'Original drawing of border to p. 879 La Morte D'Arthur' and "with my portrait of the artist, by Frederick H. Evans."Adjacent to the photograph of Beardsley's Raphael picture, Evans has written "Raphael Sanzio, see p. 29, Fac-simile by. F. H. Evans"
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This photograph, Frederick H. Evans’s classic profile portrait of artist Aubrey Beardsley, was originally bound into Evans’s personal copy of A. E. Gallatin’s Aubrey Beardsley’s Drawings: A Catalogue and List of Criticisms (New York and London, 1903).  Evans had augmented the volume by the addition of numerous platinum print copies of Beardsley’s drawings, and with the inclusion of this portrait, placing it within a pen and ink border by Beardsley, originally drawn for his illustrated Le Morte D’Arthur.

Evans had first encountered Beardsley around 1890.  Beardsley (1872 – 1898), who was then a clerk in London's Guardian Insurance Company on Lombard Street, would spend his lunch hour browsing Evans's bookshop in Cheapside.  Undiscovered as an artist, Beardsley occasionally bartered his drawings for books in Evans's shop.  Of the present portrait, Evans wrote, 'His wonderful hands fascinated me.  I well remember, on the morning I was working at him, saying that I verily believed he could pose as La Stryge of Meryon's extraordinary etching, so 'gargoyleish' did he sometimes look.  At the word, he framed his wonderful profile in his long, bony, sensitive, nervous-looking hands, with their beautifully shaped and delicately kept nails.  There at once was my study, and a study any artist would be in ecstasies to have drawn or painted' (Photography, Christmas Number, 1903, p. 6).

Evans’s unique, extra-illustrated volume of Gallatin’s catalogue of Beardsley’s drawings, from which this portrait comes, was sold in 1919 at the Anderson Gallerie🌊s, New York, in an auction of Evans’s rich and varied collection.   The auction was necessitated in part by financial difficulties brought on by the first World War.  In his introduction to the Anderson Galleries catalogue Evans wrote, with characteristic good humor:

‘”Needs must when the Devil drives” – and this War has been the Very Devil, hasn’t it?  So, I am compelled to part with very many of the things I have enjoyed so long, but, perhaps, have had long enough: to sell my Fancy Books, my Firsts, my few M. S. S. and my fewer unique things: an “omnium gatherum” of scarcities, all intrinsically interesting, whatever their extrinsic value may prove to be’ (quoted in Frederick H. Evans, Selected Texts and Bibliography, p. 105). 

Evans also wrote the individual entries for the catalogue, and in his description of Gallatin’s Catalogue he notes, ‘The Original [Beardsley] Drawing is that of the full-page Border on p. 897 Le Morte Darthur, with [Evans’s own] portrait of the artist added’ (ibid., p. 106).