[Literature & Art] Byron, Lord. (1788-1824). Lord BYRON - A Lock of Hair from the Poet.
[Literature & Art] Byron, Lord. (1788-1824). Lord BYRON - A Lock of Hair from the Poet. A lock of hair from the highly influential British poet (Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and Don Juan), politician, soldier, and adventurer, sexual and otherwise, probably the most colorful literary figure of the Romantic era.

Byron's last physician, Dr Francesco Bruno, performed his autopsy, supervised the embalming, accompanied the body back to England, and is known to have clipped souvenirs from his patient's hair. The present clipping once formed part of the collection of the author S. Adams Lee (Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt) and is sold together with the envelope postmarked 1857 in which he sent it (indicating it also once included a hair specimen of Keats!) to the noted American historian, Benson John Lossing (1813 - 1891), care of Harper & Brothers (Harper's Magazine). The clipping and envelope were later offered for sale by Walpole Galleries, whose label is now affixed to the card's verso. Contained in an oval frame ca. 1920 (broken glass recently replaced with UV-plexiglass), 4.25 x 3.25 inches, most likely dating from the period of the Walpole Galleries sale.