Gorringe's Auctioneers Fine Summer 2022

Lot 419
§ Sir Max Beerbohm (1872-
1956)
‘March of The Gentlemen’
pencil on paper study for a mural
signed and dated 1922, inscribed
‘For Jack Lynch from Max 1922’
47 x 58cm, original velvet mount,
overall 67 x 77.5cm
£7,000 - 10,000
This Beerbohm study cartoon
was intended for a mural at his
Rapallo villa, which was never
executed. It was gifted to ‘Jack’
Bohun Lynch (1884-1928),
a friend, writer, caricaturistillustrator
, and author of ‘Max
Beerbohm in perspective’ in 1922.
This study presented a unique
and remarkable socio-historical
grouping of caricatures of
Beerbohm’s closest friends, from
the Cultural, Political, Social and
Queer communities of Britain in
the early 20th Century.
Identified sitters by Sir Edward
Marsh [ 1872-1953 ] KCVO
CB CMG , pps to Joseph
Chamberlain and Sir Winston
Churchill. Sir Ray Lankester
(1849-1929) - biologist Sir
Edmund Gosse (1849-1928) -
poet, author, and critic Sir Edward
Carson (1854-1935) - politician
Cunninghame Graham (1852-
1936) - politician, writer, and
journalist Philip Wilson Steer
(1960-1942) - landscape artist
Henry Tonks (1862-1937) -
surgeon and artist Gilbert Keith
Chesterton (1874-1936) - writer
and philosopher John Masefield
(1878-1967) - poet and writer
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925)
- artist John Galsworthy…….
[1867-1933] English novelist and
playwright Lytton Strachey (1880-
1932) - writer and critic Henry
Chaplin (1840-1923) - politician
Herbert Asquith (1852-1928) -
former Prime Minister Sir Henry
Irving, [1838-1905] Stage Actor
and Manager. AJ , Earl Balfour
(1848-1930) - former Prime
Minister George S Street [1867-
1936] critic, journalist ad writer
Sir Ian Malcolm (1868-1944) -
Tory politician Director of Suez
Canal Company Chief of Clan
MacCallum/Malcolm. George
Bernard Shaw [1856-1950] Irish
playwright, critic, polemicist and
political activist.
Inscribed verso ‘This cartoon
by Max Beerbohm was drawn
for a projected wall-painting for
his villa at Rapallo, which was
never executed. It was given by
him to his friend and biographer
(Jack) Bohun Lynch, to whom
it is inscribed…… p……. It was
purchased in from his estate in
1947 by Scribners…. Several of
the identifications were supplied
by Sir Edward Marsh’, KCVO
CB CMG a British translator and
friend to Rupert Brooke. The work
was intended as the frieze for
the dining Room in his and Lady
Beerbohm’s villa, to where they
had moved in 1910. Beerbohm
had married his wife, the
American actress Florence Kahn,
in the same year.
The work was purchased from
Scribners in New York in c 1950 ,
by Sir Yehudi Menuhin, OM KBE.
And was sold by his Estate.