Portrait of Dudley Jocelyn Persse

In the early 20th century, Australian-born, Italian-based artist Dora Ohlfsen was one of the world’s most highly regarded sculptors and designers of medals and medallions.

Ohlfsen showed an early talent for music and languages and initially went to Europe in 1886 to study piano. She later took up painting and moved to Rome in 1902 with a plan to study painting but soon realised that ‘sculpture attracted me most, and I worked at that’. A particular influence was the engraver Pierre Dautel. Like him, Ohflsen began to specialise in medal art and quickly achieved success, exhibiting regularly and receiving many portrait commissions over the years.

This work depicts Dudley Jocelyn Persse, the dilettante nephew of Irish playwright Isabella Augusta Persse Gregory. He became a close friend of the writer Henry James, and 83 letters from Henry James to Persse survive. Today, these letters are held in the Houghton Library in Harvard, and a study titled “You will fit the tighter into my embrace!” has been published on them.

While many of Ohlfsen's medals are of a much smaller scale, this work is impressive in its large size. Made when he was in his 60s, Persse's distinct profile and signs of age have been captured with Ohlfsen's usual skill, with his name rendered in raised lettering around the perimeter of the medal.