Exceedingly rare vintage 8x10-inch sepia-tone portrait as armless knife-thrower Alonzo in Tod Browning's The Unknown (1927), signed and inscribed to Samuel R. Clover in the 1920s. This well-known piece has passed through the hands of several auction houses and private collections, and is quite cherishable. In good condition for its age, with gentle foxing and silvering in spots, and the writing, along the brim of his iconic hat, a touch light in the inscription, but all clearly present. One-of-a-kind horror icon Lon Chaney, Sr., was dubbed the Man of a Thousand Faces for his ability to transform himself, via make-up and body contortion, into every manner of deformed, exotic or unseemly personage. Before his tragic death of cancer at the age of 47, he was unforgettable in Treasure Island (1920), The Penalty (1920), Outside the Law (1920), Oliver Twist (1922), While Paris Sleeps (1923), The Shock (1923), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), He Who Gets Slapped (1924), The Monster (1925), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), the silent and talkie versions of The Unholy Three (1926, 1930), The Blackbird (1926), The Road to Mandalay (1926), Tell It to the Marines (1926), Mr. Wu (1927), The Unknown (1927), Mockery (1927), London After Midnight (1927), Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928), While the City Sleeps (1928), West of Zanzibar (1928), and Where East Is East (1928).

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