Description

 

 

Chaplin, Charlie (1889 – 1977)

‘Drink to me only with thine eyes’ — an extraordinary, prophetic self-portrait by the young Chaplin

A highly unusual detailed self-portrait by Charlie Chaplin, age twenty-four. On an approximately 8″ X 6″ sheet of paper, the young actor has drawn a sad-looking image of himself sporting a moustache, adding the poetic inscription, ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes. Yours Romanticly [sic], Charles Chaplin, Jun 20th 1913’. In very fine condition. Together with a rare original 3.5″ X 5.5″ postcard photograph of the actor, circa 1913, grinning in a seated formal pose. The photograph is inscribed by Chaplin to the reverse, ‘To a pal, wishing you well.’ A corner missing of the photograph, with a tear to the lower border, silvering, scuffing and adhesion marks to the reverse.

At the time that this drawing was accomplished, Chaplin was still a stage actor, touring the U.S. with a British vaudeville group run by Fred Karno. The shows consisted of music hall style comedy sketches, with Chaplin’s contributions fast paces, and often in character as a drunk. It was during this tour, in May 1913, that Keystone Studios first spotted the young Chaplin, and began to make enquiries with Karno about him, ultimately leading to him joining the studios in November 1913, and working on his first film Making a Living, which was released in 1914. What makes this drawing by Chaplin so flabbergasting is its striking similarity to the Little Tramp character, which did not come into being until January 1914; there is no record of Chaplin ever sporting a moustache before that date. The added epigraph ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes’ again brings to mind Chaplin’s poetic tramp character, who’s comedy antics were always filled with heart-rending pathos. Does this item, then, encapsulate a moment when the young Chaplin was already building in his mind the layered character that would start capturing the world’s imagination on cinema screens across the world just a year later?

An amazingly rare and desirable pair of items.