Sidney Paget's Missing / Unconfirmed Original Art

by Randall Stock, February 12, 2016

Some Sidney Paget original drawings survived until the 1970s and 1980s but are now missing. They have not been reported for at least 40 years and the Census of Sidney Paget Original Drawings and Artwork lists the owner as "not known."

Please check the photos below, and contact me if you have any information about the original drawings. As always I will keep owners and source's identity private upon request. Your information will help maintain a record of this rare material and make it likelier that the original will be preserved.

Missing Sidney Paget Original Sherlock Holmes Drawings

More than 300 of Paget's original drawings for the Holmes stories are probably lost forever. The originals of the three Strand Magazine illustrations shown below survived but their condition and location are unknown. Please contact me if you know their location.

Sidney Paget drawing for The Crooked Man

"I'll fill a vacant peg, then"

"The Adventure of the Crooked Man"

Last Reported: 1975, Adrian Conan Doyle Estate

See the full census entry

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Sidney Paget drawing for The Naval Treaty

"Holmes examined it critically"

"The Adventure of the Naval Treaty"

Last Reported: 1975, Adrian Conan Doyle Estate

See the full census entry

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Sidney Paget drawing for The Yellow Face

"He held it up"

"The Adventure of the Yellow Face"

Last Reported: 1975, Adrian Conan Doyle Estate

See the full census entry

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Other Paget Original Artwork with Information Needed

Reports are needed for other Paget drawings as well.

Please contact me if you have any information about these or other original drawings. I keep owners and source's identity private upon request.

"She stood with her back to the door"

Terence (Chapter XXVIII.) by Bithia Mary Croker

Last Reported: April 1987, sold at the John Michael Gibson auction at California Book Auction Galleries in San Francisco.

See the full census entry

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[A bobby with a lantern finding a body sprawled across stairs]

TBD: The Red Triangle
(The Affair of Samuel's Diamonds)

Likely Sidney Paget drawing for The Affair of Samuel's Diamonds

Last Reported: Offered by Peter L. Stern in 1989 and probably sold in the mid-1990s.

Description: Wash drawing (approximately 14 x 10 inches) of a police constable with a lantern finding a body sprawled across stairs. Signed "SP" by the artist and captioned "The Red Triangle."

Need to confirm both owner and that it appeared in The Red Triangle, see the full census entry

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Other Special Sherlock Holmes & Conan Doyle Material

See the Census of Sidney Paget Original Drawings and Artwork for all of Paget's reported originals.

The Sidney Paget Paintings page contains Part II of the census for his portraits, oil and watercolor paintings.

See the Sidney Paget Memorabilia page for artifacts, books, and other Holmes-related items once owned by Paget.

This website also has a census of Beeton's Christmas Annual 1887 with the first Sherlock Holmes story, and lots of information on Conan Doyle manuscripts.

While not rare, there are also lists of the each year's best Sherlock Holmes books & DVDs/Blu-ray, the best Holmes stories, and the most famous Sherlock Holmes quotes.

Return to the Sidney Paget Census