←Menu of Pictures of George Moore
Our Last Victorian
Circa 1919, aet. 67
Height 16 in; 40.64 cm
The owner wrote: The head is plaster of Paris, stearined to give it hardness and painted. Extending from the neck is a wooden peg which fits into a hollow in the body. The body is built up over a wire armature and the basic body shape formed by wound linen or bandage. The clothes are all hand made, even down to the shirt and bow tie. The shoes are of carved wood and the laces are of thread. The height is 16 inches from the head to the soles of the boots, but one must alter this in the light of the fact that the figure is deliberately meant to be arched backwards, thus lessening the height, and that the doll stands on a double plinth.
Full length doll of George Moore in evening dress, hands in pockets. A spare head accompanies the doll.
Exhibited at the Grafton Gallery (London) in 1921. Published in The Sketch (London), 2 November 1921 and again on 30 March 1927. Owned by Dr. Colin White of Leeds in 1985. Present whereabouts unknown.
“OUR LAST VICTORIAN“
A Fantastic Portrait in Wax, at the Grafton Galleries.
This amusing little effigy is one of Mr. Edmund Dulac’s exhibits at the National Portrait Society’s Exhibition at the Grafton Galleries. It is carried out in wax, is beautifully clad in an evening suit of the correct period, and stands under a glass case with a wreath suspended over its head, labelled “Our Last Victorian.” Readers will recognise it as being an amusing vision of Mr. George Moore. It stands in the entrance to the Long Gallery, as if to say “Salve” ‘to those who enter. Reported in The Sketch (London), November 2, 1921
My Dead Life
1920, aet. 68
14.75 x 10.5 in, 365 x 267 mm
Pen and black ink on paper
Signed and dated in the upper left
Headlined “Personal Literature.” (Mr. George Moore) By Edmund Dulac. Captioned ”My Dead Life.” Signed: Edmund Dulac, 20. Three-quarter length on the right side of the picture, half-turned to his right, hands in pants pockets, wearing a French sailor’s cap. In front of him a barrow with volumes of French literature including Zola and Maupassant, pictures, a mounted bust of an adoring woman, and articles of feminine toilet.
The caption refers to Moore’s Memoirs of My Dead Life (1906) written in his signature style of imaginative autobiography.
According to biographer Colin White in personal correspondence, “Dulac also made another caricature of George Moore in the form of a costermonger selling fruit from a barrow. I have never seen this and have no idea whether it still exists.” This sketch may be a study for that project.
Offered by Forum Auctions (June 2025). Published in the Outlook (London, 27 March 1920). Present whereabouts unknown.
Study for My Dead Life
1920, aet. 68
12.5 x 8.75 in; 31.75 x 22.23 cm
Pencil on tracing paper
(Image forthcoming)
In the margin: L’ARGOT DES MECS/le Salon/publications artistiques. Similar to the published version except changed positions and lacking details in the lower part of the drawing.
Owned by the Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK.
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