“O. W.” by Edward Linley Sambourne (1844-1910)</span>

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“O. W. [Oscar Wilde]

Edward Linley Sambourne (1844-1910)

1881

Wood engraving

Punch (25 June 1881): 298

“Punch’s Fancy Portraits. — No. 37”

“O, I feel just as happy as a bright Sunflower!” Lays of Christy Minstrelsey

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Oscar Wilde (homepage)

Caricature by Max Beerbohm

Image capture and text by George P. Landow.

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Sambourne has depicted Wilde as sunflower, a popular image with the Aesthetes, and he shows him between a pen in an inkwell and a spittoon marked “waste” as Wilde looks down at a sheet of paper bear the word “ode.” The quotation (or supposed quotation) from the Christy Minstrels, a blackface group popular in music halls, rather than from a respected poet emphasizes the satirist’s point that Wilde is a someone known because of his penchant for publicity. In other words, Sambourne presents him as a celebrity rather than a poet.

Other Punch Cartoons about Life among the Aesthetes

Created 11 May 2020