Inscribed on a label on reverse of the frame: “Model and Mistresses”- Frank Miles 1852-1891- No 6 - Portrait of Lillie Langtry 1884 - Oil on canvas - Signed and dated - 30 x 25 inches Lillie Langtry, the `Jersey Lillie' was first introduced to Edward, the Prince of Wales, on 24 May 1877 at the home of Mrs Allen Young in Stratford Place. Frank Miles did drawings & paintings of her, and she first met Oscar Wilde at the house he shared with Frank Miles in 1879, just off the Strand. Both moved to houses designed by E. W. Godwin where his portrait would have been painted. Beautiful, with courage and intelligence to match, Lillie Langtry, the `Jersey Lillie', was Victorian Britain's most famous and charismatic actress. The daughter of the dean of Jersey, she married the wealthy Edward Langtry in 1874 and moved to Eaton Place, Belgravia in London in 1876. By the following year, Lillie found herself at the beating heart of Bohemian London. Oscar Wilde, having recently won his Newdigate Prize for his poem `Ravenna', thought her the loveliest woman in Europe when he met her in Frank Miles's studio. He subsequently lavished her with his attentions, whisking her off to lectures on Greek art at the British Museum, calling on her each day bearing a lily or amaryllis from the Covent Garden flower market, and introducing her to the great writers and artists of the day. These included Whistler, who helped her design her dining room with palm-leaf fans and gold paint, Ruskin, who smiled at her `under bushy eyebrows' and the decadent poet Swinburne. All were fervent admirers of her beauty, and they in turn appealed to her active mind and helped to develop her taste. Lillie's feelings towards Oscar Wilde at first were mutual; she called him the `Apostle of the Lillie', lent him Sir Edward Poynter's portrait of her to display on an easel in his drawing room, and enthused about his remarkably fascinating and compelling personality, and what in an actor would be termed wonderful `stage presence'...He had one of the most alluring voices that I have ever listened to, round and soft, and full of variety and expression, and the cleverness of his remarks received added allure from his manner of delivering them. (1) Oscar later moved into Frank Miles' untidy and romantic house just off the Strand where Lillie and he had first met. The two friends cultivated the habit of having beautiful people to tea, and Lillie was naturally their favourite and frequent guest. Oscar Wilde undoubtedly would have overlooked the progression of this portrait. Frank Miles was the very first artist to sketch The Jersey Lillie's extraordinary beauty. He beat Millais to the post, having made some lightning sketches of her one evening in 1877 when Lillie was invited to a Sunday evening at home with Lady Sebright in Lowndes Square. Millais had earlier in the evening asked her to sit for him, wanting to be the first painter to reproduce on canvas what he called the `classical features' of his country woman. However the next day Frank Miles's sketches of Lillie were put on sale in London shops, spreading the fame of her unusual good looks. When Millais did paint her he depicted her in a simple black dress, her hair knotted back with a crimson Jersey lily in her hand. When it was hung in the Royal Academy in 1878, it drew such throngs of people that it had to be roped off to prevent it being damaged. The friendship between Lillie and Oscar Wilde came to an end when the relationship became too intense. Lillie would find Oscar curled up asleep on her doorstep: Mr. Langtry, returning unusually late, put an end to his poetic dreams by tripping over him. He presented her with a white, vellum-bound copy of his poem `The New Helen' with a dedication `To Helen, formerly of Troy, now of London' and generally found him too persistent in hanging round the house or running about after me elsewhere.(2) Upset after a rude remark that she had made to him, Oscar was led away in tears from the stalls of the theatre by his friend Frank Miles when he noticed her in her box. She took London by storm in her stage appearance as Kate Hardcastle in Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer at the Haymarket theatre in 1881. Women adored her and men fell in love with her and the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) was no exception. Lillie became the Prince's mistress, and when her husband died in 1897, she married the extremely wealthy Hugo de Bathe. Four years later, Lillie set out on a tour of America. The President Theodore Roosevelt described her as: so pretty she takes away a man's breath.(3) She had enormous success, and one besotted fan, Judge Roy Bean, travelled thousands of miles from San Antonio Texas to see her, paying a tremendous price for a ticket in the front row. He could not pluck up enough courage to introduce himself backstage but returned home to Vinegaroon, a small town that belonged to him, and changed the town's name to Langtry. Lillie's picture hung behind the bar in his saloon where the customers were obliged to toast to her upon buying a drink. Lillie Langtry published her autobiography, The Days I Knew, in 1925. (1) Sonia Hillsdon, The Jersey Lillie, The Life and Times of Lillie Langtry, 1993, page 54-55 (2) Ibid., page 57 (3) Ibid., page 38