KEITH VAUGHAN (1913-1977)
Antique head, Ozymandias
stamped with K.V. (on the reverse)
ink and wash
18.9 x 28 cm (8 x 11 in)
Executed in the 1940s.

In the early 1940s Vaughan worked on several pen and ink drawings for book covers (see The King of Aisle by Rex Warner, published by John Lehmann, 1948) The current lot most probably relates to Percy Shelley's famous poem Ozymandias. Another example of a drawing of a classical head is held in the archive of Tate Britain, London.

Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelly

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.



We are grateful to Gerard Hastings, whose new book Keith Vaughan: The Graphic Art is published by Pagham Press, for preparing this catalogue entry.