Oscar Wilde’s “Neronian Coiffure”

This article is an abbreviated version of “Imitatio Neronis: Oscar Wilde’s ‘Neronian Coiffure’”, which was published in The Wildean, 59, in July 2021.

Oscar Wilde, photographed by Napoleon Sarony in New York, January 1882. Library of Congress.

Oscar Wilde, photographed by Napoleon Sarony in New York, August 1883. Image: oscarwildeinamerica.org

The most familiar images of Oscar Wilde are the photographs taken of him in New York in 1882 by Napoleon Sarony. Wilde was then famed more for his collar-length mane than his poetry, wit, or conversation, but the abundant tresses were a passing phase. Once he was back in Europe they were snipped off and swept away.

In June of 1883 Wilde told the London correspondent of The Boston Herald that he adopted his new hairdo after seeing the cropped hair of a sculpture of Nero. It was “the statue of the wickedest man, modelled by the greatest sculptor”. When he returned to New York in August—and was again photographed by Sarony—he expanded on the story:

You see, I was in the gallery of the Louvre in Paris, and I saw the bust of a young Roman Emperor. It was very beautiful, indeed. As soon as I saw that the young Emperor had his hair cut short, I wanted to be like him.

Only afterwards, Wilde claimed, had he discovered that “the bust represented Nero, one of the worst behaved young men in the world, and yet a man of strong artistic passion”.

Is it possible to determine which sculpture of Nero Wilde copied? Wilde’s haircut in the 1883 Sarony photographs most closely matches that of the Louvre’s statue of Nero as a young boy. Both Wilde and the juvenile Nero have straight, square cut bangs. Wilde must have seen this statue because it was prominently displayed beside the statue of Augustus in the Salle d’Auguste (today’s Salle 414), the museum’s largest room of Roman antiquities. However, in 1883 it had not yet been identified as the emperor: experts thought it was simply an anonymous Roman boy. It cannot be the sculpture Wilde referred to in interviews because he did not know it was Nero.

Nero as a child (Ma 1210, MR 337). Wikimedia/Scailyna (CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped).

So-called Nero, once displayed in the Louvre (Ma 1006, MR 306).

Nero, like Wilde, sported multiple hairstyles. His most famous look was a head of short curls. In the spring and early summer of 1883, before he was photographed by Sarony with his straight bangs, Wilde had been spotted in Paris and London with short, tight curls. If he really had copied Nero, the most likely source of his inspiration is a statue that was once described as a “heroic statue of a Roman, half clothed, called Nero”. When Wilde visited the Louvre, the statue was displayed in the Salle de Mécène (today’s Salle 409). It is no longer thought to depict Nero. In fact, it has been taken off display. The lower legs, right arm, left hand, and head—modern additions to the antique body—have been removed. It is unlikely that Wilde, who adored “beautiful untrue things”, would have approved.

Why would Wilde have wanted to copy Nero? The fifth Roman emperor was, for the Victorians, the epitome of evil. He was cruel, dissipated, and depraved: persecutor of the early Christians, murderer of his mother and wife, and lover of male slaves. But Wilde’s literary heroes— Gustave Flaubert, Théophile Gautier, and Charles Baudelaire—had already courted controversy by praising Nero. By claiming to have modelled his appearance on the wicked emperor, Wilde was being deliberately provocative and edgy.

Alfred, Count D’Orsay by Sir George Hayter, 1839. National Portrait Gallery, London.

The stylish musician Victor Capoul wearing bangs on the cover of an 1882 issue of Music and Drama.

There are other explanations for Wilde’s curly hairstyle and for his short bangs. For example, in 1883 he had adopted Regency dress and his appearance was often compared to Regency style icons, such as the Prince Regent, Beau Brummell, and Count D’Orsay. In fact, a portrait of Wilde painted in 1884 seems to have been modelled on a portrait of Count D’Orsay. He very well could have copied the French fop. As for the short, straight bangs, Wilde may have adopted them specifically for his return to America in the summer of 1883 because they were a popular style. They were worn both by aesthetes and by a new type of man that had come to prominence in New York that year: the “dude”. Dudes wore bangs, tight trousers, and pointy shoes, and carried silver-topped canes. In 1882 American newspapers had referred to Wilde as “the Apostle of Aestheticism”; in 1883 he was dubbed “the Prince of Dudes”. After returning to the UK, Wilde immediately had his hair curled again. This is further evidence that the short, straight bangs were solely for the benefit of New York.

So, did Wilde base his Neronian coiffure (or coiffures) on Nero? He may have done, but we will probably never know for sure. My feeling is that he took inspiration from a number of sources, and that the stories he told interviewers were as dodgy as his haircuts.