{"id":305070,"date":"2026-02-18T23:43:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/305070\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T23:43:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:43:10","slug":"oscar-wilde-death-bed-photo-sells-for-about-100-times-its-guide-price-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/305070\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Wilde death bed photo sells for about 100 times its guide price \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A photograph of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/oscar-wilde\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/oscar-wilde\/\">Oscar Wilde<\/a> on his death bed has been sold for \u00a3279,800 (about \u20ac320,000) in an auction at Bonhams in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/london\/3\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/london\/3\/\">London<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The photo had a guide price of \u00a32,000 to \u00a33,000. It was taken on the day Wilde died, November 30th, 1900.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The image was one of 156 lots sold during an auction on Wednesday afternoon. In total, the items fetched \u00a31,689,780 (more than \u20ac1.9 million), Bonhams said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In its description of the image, Bonhams noted that Wilde died at his room in the H\u00f4tel d\u2019Alsace, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/paris\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/paris\/\">Paris<\/a>, in the presence of Robert Ross, Reginald Turner, and hotel proprietor Jean Dupoirier, who laid Wilde out, clothed in a white nightshirt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cShortly after, Ross asked Gilbert Maurice to take this photograph,\u201d a statement from Bonhams said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Many of the items sold on Wednesday fetched a multiple of the guide prices listed in advance of the auction. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Two autographed manuscripts, a working draft and a copy of the sonnet titled The Grave of Shelley (from circa 1881), sold for \u00a360,090. These had a guide price of \u00a312,000 to \u00a318,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A series of five letters, signed by Wilde, sent to J Graham Hill in 1888 and 1891 fetched \u00a357,550, compared to a guide price of \u00a310,000 to \u00a315,000. In the letters, Wilde asked Hill to \u201ccome and have tea\u201d and complimented his \u201cvery graceful and dainty\u201d poetry.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Richard Ellmann on Oscar Wilde: &#x201C;Now beyond the reach of scandal, his best writings validated by time, he comes before us still, a towering figure, laughing and weeping, with parables and paradoxes, so generous, so amusing, so right.&#x201D; Photograph: Napoleon Sarony\/Getty Images\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/BSIL2MSRMHD43267BV2F3DLJU4.jpg\"   width=\"800\" height=\"450\"\/>Richard Ellmann on Oscar Wilde: \u201cNow beyond the reach of scandal, his best writings validated by time, he comes before us still, a towering figure, laughing and weeping, with parables and paradoxes, so generous, so amusing, so right.\u201d Photograph: Napoleon Sarony\/Getty Images <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In one of the letters, Wilde asked: \u201cAre you still enamoured by Love and Poetry? I hope so. They are only two things in the world that remain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">An autographed letter sent to Reggie Turner in August 1897 sold for \u00a357,550, much higher than the \u00a38,000 to \u00a312,000 guide price. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A signed first edition of his drama Salom\u00e9 sold for \u00a348,640, up from a guide price of \u00a315,000 to \u00a325,000. The edition was inscribed \u201c\u00e0 mon cher ami (to my dear friend) Stuart Merrill\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Merrill, who first met Wilde in London in 1890, was one of four French-speaking writers \u2013 alongside Adolphe Rett\u00e9, Pierre Lou\u00ffs and Marcel Schwob \u2013 who Wilde charged with correcting his French, and making suggestions for revisions of the text of Salom\u00e9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A photograph of Oscar Wilde on his death bed has been sold for \u00a3279,800 (about \u20ac320,000) in an&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,99,7652,1838,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-305070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-london","11":"tag-oscar-wilde","12":"tag-paris","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}