3-057-547 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Portrait of The Late Marquis of Queensberry, c1890s. John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry (1844-1900), was a British nobleman of the Victorian era, remembered for his atheism, his outspoken views, his brutish manner, for lending his name to the "Queensberry Rules" that form the basis of modern boxing, and for his role in the downfall of the Irish author and playwright Oscar Wilde. Queensberry's son, Lord Alfred Douglas (1870-1945) met Wilde at Oxford University and they became intimate. Queensberry abhorred their relationship and set out to humiliate Wilde, publicly accusing him of homosexuality. Wilde sued Queensberry for criminal libel, but Wilde was imprisoned, and died in 1900. From "Oscar Wilde and Myself" by Lord Alfred Douglas. [London.1914].