Aubrey Beardsley, Design for the Frontispiece to John Davidson's Plays 1894
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This does not apparently show a scene from one of Davidson's plays, but is instead a series of caricatures of notable figures of the day. At the centre, the cloaked figure is Sir Augustus Harris, the manager of the Covent Garden, Drury Lane and Her Majesty's theatres. A corpulent Oscar Wilde is portrayed as Bacchus, and beside him the nude woman is Beardsley's sister Mabel, an actress. The faun is Henry Harland, literary editor of the 'Yellow Book', the masked figure is the poet Richard Le Gallienne, and the ballerina is the dancer Adeline Genee.
August 2004
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