Lot 23: BYRON, GEORGE GORDON, LORD (1788-1824, poet)

PORTRAIT BY 'J.D.', AFTER THE DRAWING BY GEORGE HENRY HARLOW (1787-1819),
pencil drawing, head and shoulders, inscribed 'Harlow' and 'Lord Byron', signed and dated September 1825 by the copyist, watermark date 1824, 8¾ x 7 in (22.2 x 17.8 cm).

EXHIBITED: Cheltenham Literary Festival, Faces and Places, 1982.

This copy of one of the most famous portraits of Byron, made in the year following the poet's death, was formerly in the possession of Sir Geoffrey Keynes. It is recorded by Richard Walker in Regency Portraits (National Portrait Gallery), 1985, i. p.85.

Sir Walter Scott's son-in-law, Lockhart wrote that 'Lord Byron's head is without doubt the finest in our time. I think it better on the whole, than either Napoleon's, or Goethe's, or Canova's, or Wordsworth's.' (David Piper, The Image of the Poet, 1982).