Beerbohm (Max) "English Portraits" [William Rothenstein (1872-1945)], pen and black ink over black chalk under-drawing, watercolour, signed ''Max' in the centre right of sheet, title inscribed lower right, on 'Wessex Antique' laid paper, 320 x 201 mm (12 1/2 x 8 in), some spotting and surface dirt, unframed, [circa 1900]

Provenance:
James Cummins Bookseller, New York

Literature:
Rupert Hart-Davis, A Catalogue of the Caricatures of Max Beerbohm, 1972, no. 1303

⁂ Beerbohm was a close friend of the artist William Rothenstein, and spoke at the artist's memorial service, where he said of him that "I have known no man who so dearly loved a joke against himself"; Beerbohm and Rothenstein exchanged over 220 letters across half a century. The inscription in the present drawing appears to relate to Rothenstein's publication of the same name printed in 1898, within which Rothenstein had included his own portrait of Beerbohm.