JOYCE (JAMES, 1882-1941, novelist, poet and playwright) FINE BRONZE UNIFACE MEDALLIC PORTRAIT OF JOYCE by Theodore Spicer-Simson, profile portrait, bearded and wearing glasses facing left, inscribed, signed and dated in the field 'James Joyce A.D. 1922 T.S S', c. 3½ inches (87 mm) in diameter, founder's monogram and number on reverse, good colour and patination, extremely fine, 1922

The present medallion portrait of Joyce made in 1922, the year of the publication of Ullysses, is rare.

Theodore Spicer-Simson (1871-1959), an American medallist, painter, sculptor and illustrator, born in Le Havre, first met Joyce in Paris in 1903. Two letters from Joyce to him are printed in Ellmann's edition of the Letters, the first in 1910 when he was correcting the proofs of Dubliners, apologising for not being able to attend an evening in honour of Laurence Sterne, the second in 1922 in response to Spicer-Simson's request for a sitting for the present medallion which was reproduced in his Men of Letters of the British Isles, New York 1924. Because of an imminent eye operation Joyce explains that he will not be able to pose for him but suggests that he obtain from his publishers 'a bundle of all the sketches and photographs which were made about the time of the publication of Ullysses.'

Spicer-Simson 'combined in his work a strong feeling for the medals of the Italian Renaissance and the taste of the Aesthetic Movement, continued the English tradition of cast medal-making into the first decade of the twentieth century.' (Mark Jones, The Art of the Medal, 1979).

£1,250