The recent number of The Wildean (No. 69, July 2026) contains two articles related to Ricketts in one way or another (the second one will be discussed later).
The first article, written by Simon Wilson, discusses Max Beerbohm’s original illustrations in a first edition of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé (the French edition) from February 1893. This copy came to light last year at Christie’s auction on 22 October 2025, and the price it fetched caused quite a stir: €825,500. Max Beerbohm created an impressive number of original pen-and-ink drawings for it, and the book apparently subsequently passed into Oscar Wilde’s collection, who eventually gave it – with an undated handwritten dedication – to Robert Ross.
Wilson discusses the style of the illustrations, which in places draw on Aubrey Beardsley's imagery, and concludes that they must date from the period between ‘late August 1893’ and ‘mid-1894’.
According to Wilson (and according to the auction house), the final drawing in the book, on the last page, was created by Charles Ricketts. This is based on an inscription on that page:
CR. Member of the society for the protection of | Ancient monuments | 1906
The story goes that Ricketts did not have the final say on the matter: after him, Beerbohm altered the drawing by adding his own self-portrait and having that figure diligently write his name on the Sphinx-like stones.
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Oscar Wilde, Salomé (1893)
With original drawings by Max Beerbohm
Drawing ascribed to Charles Ricketts |
The date 1906 points – as there are hardly any other plausible reasons – to the first performances of Salome in London in 1906, for which Ricketts designed the costumes and scenery. Robert Ross may have shown the book to him on that occasion.
In order to interpret this inscription and the drawing – clearly a pastiche of one of Ricketts’s line drawings in The Sphinx (June 1894) – a number of questions must first be answered.
Can the inscription be attributed with certainty to Ricketts?
Comparing the handwriting to that of Ricketts, we may conclude that the inscription is in his hand. However, the location of his initials at the beginning, rather than at the end, of the inscription suggests that Ricketts did not sign it as an artist – in which case his initials, CR, would also have appeared elsewhere on the page within the drawing – but as a commentator.
Does the drawing date from the same year as the inscription?
The unusual nature of the inscription, in my view, separates the drawing from the caption. It is not in Ricketts’s nature to add a drawing to a publication that has been made unique by a fellow artist. That aside, we are familiar with satirical sketches by Ricketts and Shannon from their early student days, in which they portrayed one another in odd poses and situations, but a caricature of Oscar Wilde is not an obvious choice. It would be out of character for Ricketts who after the death of Wilde thoroughly realized the genius and humanity of his friend.
Moreover, I see no reason whatsoever to assume that the drawing, entirely in the style of Beerbohm (parodying Ricketts), was not produced before the book was given to Wilde. The Sphinx was published in June 1894, and this date falls within the period in which the other drawings could also have been produced, according to Wilson, who by the way, excludes this drawing from his paragraph about 'The dating of the Beerbohm illustrations' (p. 34-37). This drawing is singled out only on the basis of the dated inscription, but it may be the last drawing in the book simply because The Sphinx was published relatively late in Beerbohm's process of illustrating this copy, and Beerbohm decision to include a parody of it in his copy of Salomé may have been his last intervention before handing the book to Oscar Wilde.
Attributing this drawing to two artists on the basis of an inscription that may be unrelated to it makes dating it unnecessarily difficult: to ensure that both Ricketts and Beerbohm could have produced their work in 1906, complex assumptions have to be made, which are unnecessary without that artistic combination.
Another drawing by Beerbohm
My conclusion would be that all drawings in the book are by Beerbohm, including the portrait of the later Wilde holding a statue of the young Oscar in his lap.
On the occasion of the Salome performances in London, Ross may have shown the book to Ricketts - that would make sense, and Ricketts will have understood and even liked the parody by Beerbohm of his own Sphinx drawings (Ricketts thought they belonged to the best he ever made), and in the course of his conversation with Ross, he may have given his blessing to them by adding his inscription. There was no need for Beerbohm to follow up on this, as his drawings had preceded the inscription. Apart from the inscription, nothing in the drawing on this page of Salomé reveals Ricketts’s craftsmanship, whilst everything in it points to Beerbohm.
