Item 6: Max Beerbohm's walking stick (ca. 1900)

Beerbohm had no respect for material objects; they were toys to be played with, well into old age. To the dismay of his first wife, Florence, he painted the entrance to their villa in Italy with frescoes caricaturing celebrities whom he admired, such as the novelist Henry James, and friends such as the critic Edmund Gosse. He filled shelves with faux books mocking real authors. All his adult life, he was a dandy who sported an elegant walking stick, but not even that item was off limits. This one bears a silver band, engraved “Portrait of Mr. Alexander Teixeira de Mattos,” and its top has been carved in the image of that writer’s bulbous head.