The Portrait of Dorian Gray’s Teddy Bear

December 9, 2019 at 11:07 pm (Art, Arts, Culture, Literature, Mystery, painting, The Supernatural, Vampire novel) (Dashwood Forrest, Dorian Gray, Dorian Gray's Teddy Bear, Oscar Wilde, portrait of Dorian Gray, The Dashwood Forrest Art Gallery, The Picture of Dorian Gray)

The Portrait of Dorian Gray’s Teddy Bear 

Dashwood Forrest the owner of The Dashwood Forrest Art Gallery had spent the day visiting a London Christmas Market.

On his way home, he had visited a small antique store where he noticed a rather old painting of a child’s teddy bear.

Intrigued by the painting, Forrest had bought the painting for £20 and brought it back to his gallery with him.

He gave the painting a cleaning and noticed the name of the artist- Basil Hallward.

The same artist who had painted the original portrait of Dorian Gray that Forrest had purchased at an estate sale back in October of 2012.

Prior to purchasing that painting, Forrest had just believed that the artist Basil Hallward was a fictional character and the famous portrait of Dorian Gray had been a figment of Oscar Wilde’s imagination.

Back on September 3rd of this year, the figure of Dorian Gray had disappeared from the painting when Hurricane Dorian had struck the Caribbean.

Only to return when the storm finally faded into oblivion.

And now here was a portrait of a teddy bear done by the same man who had painted a portrait of Dorian Gray.

Forrest noticed the year below Basil Hallward’s name -1860- the same year he had painted the picture of Dorian Gray.

Forrest decided to take the frame off and check the back of the canvas of the painting.

There on the back of the canvas of the painting were the words Portrait of Dorian Gray’s Toy Bear- painted 1860.

So Dorian Gray had owned a teddy bear before teddy bears became popular (teddy bears had emerged as a phenomenon back in the early 1900s and the toy bears had in fact been named after Teddy Roosevelt who was the U.S. President of the day).

Forrest went to the secluded room in the gallery where he kept the picture of Dorian Gray.

He hung the portrait of Dorian Gray’s teddy bear next to Gray’s portrait.

He then put the velvet curtains up again in front of both paintings, turned off the lights and closed the door.

Had he stayed in the room a few minutes longer, he’d have noticed the figure of Dorian Gray’s teddy bear in the portrait had gone missing.

-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Monday December 9th
2019.