Highly rare vintage matte-finish 11x14-inch black and white portrait-- perhaps the loveliest we have ever seen and the only example of this size-- boldly signed and inscribed in black fountain pen in the late 1920s or early 1930s. In fine condition, with a chip and gentle crease to the upper right-hand corner, and a heavier diagonal bend at the top center, running from the top border into the top of her head. Although elegantly-clad leading lady Lilyan Tashman was sleek and sophisticated in such silents as Manhandled (1924) and Don't Tell the Wife (1929), she didn't come into her own until her first sound film, New York Nights, in 1929. For the next five years, the blonde beauty became one of Hollywood's best "bad girls", using up men like tissue paper, employing her wiles to adorn herself with creature comforts and making it quite clear that she deemed sex a pleasurable recreation, and not just a means to an end.  She was also memorable in the horror classics The Cat Creeps (1930) and Murder by the Clock (1931), and a brief series of comedies co-starring Kay Francis, most notably Girls About Town (1931). Alas, shortly after completing Riptide in 1934, Tashman died of cancer, aged only 37 years. It is probable that, had she not passed away, her career would have been decimated by the establishment of the Hollywood Production Code, which effectively eliminated the sort of delightfully debauched vixens so deftly portrayed by the unforgettable vamp.

• Tweet