777. The Toilette of Venus

In March 1914, Martin Birnbaum, manager of the Berlin Photographic Company in New York, organised an exhibition of paintings, bronzes and graphic works by Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon. The exhibition was not as successful as expected and few works were sold, even though Birnbaum moved the exhibition to two other venues: after New York, the works were on display in Providence, Rhode Island (April-May), and in Buffalo, New York (September).

The catalogues for New York and Providence are almost identical, and were printed by The De Vinne Press. However, the third catalogue for the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy does not bear their printer’s mark. It was re-set after a different design and contains several newly included drawings (possibly replacing sold items) and one more painting by Shannon, which is number 29 in the catalogue: ‘The Toilette of Venus’. The painting was on loan from ‘William Macbeth, Esq’, who lived in Southampton (Long Island).

Douglas Volk, 'William Macbeth', oil on canvas, 1917
Brooklyn Museum, Gift of a group of American artists and amateurs, 18.38
[Photo: Brooklyn Museum]

William Macbeth (1851-1917) was an art dealer form Scottish-Irish descent, who arrived in the USA in 1871 and began his career with Frederick Keppel and Co. In 1892, he established the Macbeth Gallery in New York. His records are in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian: Macbeth Gallery Records. The records do not mention the names of Ricketts and Shannon, the additional painting does not occur in the files (as far as I could see, not all have been digitised).

'Birnbaum, Martin' card,
Macbeth Gallery Records
[Smithsonian, Washington]

The files contain an address card of Martin Birnbaum that seens to be of later date and does not mention the Shannon painting that Birnbaum lent from the gallery. Possibly this painting was from Macbeth's private collection.

The toilet was one of Shannon’s favourite subjects, and the titles of various paintings on this theme differ very little from one another (apart from the fact that they always use the British rather than the American spelling), and the paintings depict women, sometimes with a child or a servant nearby, washing or combing their hair.

The exhibition contained two of these 'Toilet' paintings, numbered 'I' and 'II'. These are probably the paintings knowns as ‘Toilet Scene I’ and ‘Toilet Scene II’, which have been in the collection of Manchester Art Gallery since 1948.

Other 'Toilet' paintings are in the Watts Gallery, Compton, the Usher Gallery, Lincoln, and the Carlisle City and Art Gallery, Carlisle. 

'The Toilette of Venus' is an early (Americanised) title for an early painting by Shannon, first exhibited in 1904 as 'The Toilet of Venus', apparently also known as 'The Green Marble Bath', and eventually called 'The Bath of Venus' that was acquired by the The Tate in 1940. Former owners were: Francis Howard (acquired in 1940), Jeremiah Colman (bought in 1918), the Viscount and Viscountess Northcliffe (sold in 1918), and now we can add the name of an earlier owner: William Macbeth (1914), and the date of the exhibition in Buffalo. 

Charles Shannon, 'The Bath of Venus'
[Tate Gallery London]

776. Published: Four Fugitive Letters

On 13 June, a festive edition of several letters by Charles Ricketts was published in The Hague under the title Four Fugitive Letters. To Cecil French, Martin Birnbaum, Helen Travers Smith & Isabelle Augusta Gregory. 

Copies of Charles Ricketts, Four Fugitive Letters (June 2026)

Whilst working on the publication of The Collected Letters of Charles Ricketts, John Aplin and I realised that once the manuscript would be finalised, previously unknown letters from the artist might come to light. Shortly before that moment, we were able to include a few more letters (these have ‘i’ added after the letter number), but even after the final sequence was established, followed by several rounds of proofreading, some more emerged.

One letter appeared at the auction of the Jeremy Maas collection of Oscar Wilde (Bonhams, 18 February 2026) and another at an auction held by Forum Books (26 March 2026). We also received photographs of a letter in a private collection (thanks are due to Paul Durham) and discovered via the Internet that another one had been auctioned a quarter of a century earlier. 

To celebrate the publication of the collected letters by Brill in Leiden and Boston, we decided to edit these four freshly discovered letters. 

As a special service to the reader, every copy of this booklet contains each of the letters on a separate loose sheet, so that they can be kept in the correct place within the collected edition.

Unassembled copies of Charles Ricketts, Four Fugitive Letters, fresh from the printers
[Photo: Huug Schipper, June 2026]

Charles Ricketts
Four Fugitive Letters. To Cecil French, Martin Birnbaum, Helen Travers Smith & Isabelle Augusta Gregory

The Hague, At the Paulton, June 2026
12 [and 8] pages, 3 illustrations (2 on the covers), 21 x 12 cm
Designed by Huug Schipper | Studio Tint
Set in Petr van Blokland's Presti Display Medium
Printed on Biotop by Van Deventer Printers, 's-Gravezande
Edition limited to 34 numbered copies

Price: €12,50.

Packaging and shipping:
European Union: €5,00; [with track and trace: €13,50].
United Kingdom: €7,00; [with track and trace: €16,00]
USA and Canada: €7,00; [with track and trace: €25,00].

Orders
You can express your interest by sending an email to Paul van Capelleveen [see the address in the right-hand bar]. You will receive a Paypal invoice.

775. Not To Be Taken Away (3)

The two editions published by the Eragny Press bearing the inscription ‘File Copy Not To Be Taken Away’ came from the collection of Antonio Cippico. We can trace their history back a little further.

In 2006, the two editions recently offered by Sophie Schneideman – Flaubert’s La Légende de Saint Julien l’Hospitalier (1900) and Un Coeur simple (1901) – were listed on the website of the antiquarian bookshop Maggs Rare Books in London. The third volume of Flaubert’s Hérodias (1901) was not included, but there is indeed a copy bearing that inscription. We know this from an earlier antiquarian bookshop catalogue.

The Gentle Art
(Zurich: L'Art Ancien S.A., 1974)

The Gentle Art of Lucien Pissarro was the cover title of a catalogue issued by L'Art Ancien in Zurich: The Gentle Art. A Collection of Books and Wood Engravings by Lucien Pissarro. Compiled by Geoffrey Perkins with the assistance of Heidi Seger, the catalogue listed 47 journal publications, portfolios, single prints, and books. The intention was to sell the collection as a whole, but apparently this did not happen. 

The Gentle Art (Zurich: L'Art Ancien S.A., 1974)

A 'Note' in the catalogue mentions: 

A few of the following Eragny Press books come from a collection formed in the period 1910-1925 by a close friend of Charles Ricketts. These items were Ricketts's former file copies and still bear a short handwritten notice to that effect on the upper cover. This is denoted by an asterisk before the title.

(p. 26)

These seven books are:

16. Gustave Flaubert, La Légende de Saint Julien l’Hospitalier (1900) 

17. Les Ballades de Maistre François Villon (1900)

18. Gustave Flaubert, Un Coeur simple (1901) 

19. Gustave Flaubert, Hérodias (1901)

20. Autres poésies de Maistre François Villon et son école (1901)

22. Francis Bacon, Of Gardens (1902)

23. Choix de sonnets de P. de Ronsard (1902)

All these have the 'prospectus on front inside cover' and a bookplate, except no. 20 which lacks the bookplate.

Bookplate of Antonio Cippico

The bookplate, of course, is that of Ricketts's Italian friend Antonio Francisco Niccolo Cippico (1877-1935). His books were probably left to his wife Margaret Howard McCallum Webster (c.1879-1953). 

Their two sons - Tristram Alvise (1904-1979) and Aldo Marino (1905-1985) - may have sold the books at any date before 1974.

The Gentle Art (Zurich: L'Art Ancien S.A., 1974)

774. Not To Be Taken Away (2)

In Warwick Street (later Craven Street), at Hacon & Ricketts’s shop, ‘At the Sign of the Dial’, visitors could view small exhibitions, examine prints by The Dial group and browse the books published under the name the Vale Press. Charles Ricketts had made his typeface, The Vale, available to Lucien Pissarro, and originally the books published by the Eragny Press were partly distributed through the shop. From 1899 onwards, Hacon & Ricketts bought the complete edition of Eragny Press books, becoming Pissarro's publishers. On a single copy of the print run – the copy shown to visitors as an example – the words ‘File copy Not to be taken away’ were written, as we saw two weeks ago (see blog 772 Not To Be Taken Away).

The catalogues of the exhibitions were no exception, such as that of the Boyd Houghton show held from 25 June to 2 July 1896.

Catalogue: An Exhibition of Forty Designs by A. Boyd Houghton
including original drawings and proofs retouched by the artist
(The Sign of the Dial, 1896)
File copy 'Not to be taken away'.

Sophie Schneideman offered two file copies from the Eragny Press, both titles by Gustave Flaubert, published in 1900 and 1901. On closer inspection, there is something peculiar about one of them, Un Coeur simple.

Gustave Flaubert, Un Coeur simple
(Eragny Press, 1901)

Most copies have a label that gives the author's full name: Gustave Flaubert. This is separated from the title by two acorn leaf ornaments, which came with the Vale Type and were designed by Ricketts for the Vale Press.

However, the label on the upper board of the file copy gives the name as G. Flaubert. There is one acorn leaf ornament that now precedes the title. Name and title have been separated by a row of seven triangles of asterisks placed alternately upright and upside down. Ricketts had used this ornament for The Sonnets of Sir Philips Sidney (1898), and he used them to make longer rows, but placed them upright only. Pissarro had used them in that way as a separating line in La Légende de Saint Julien l'Hospitalier (1900), pages 27, 58, 85 and 93.

Marcella D. Genz's A History of the Eragny Press 1894-1914 does not mention this alternative label, nor does the bibliography contain any information about the ornaments used.

Since the entire print run was sold to Hacon & Ricketts in one go, no unbound copies remained in stock and no additional labels were subsequently printed. It seems that Leighton, Son, and Hodge needed a week to bind all copies (Genz, p. 56). The same procedure was not followed for Vale Press books, were unbound copies were shelved at the printing firm (Ballantyne) and these copies were bound when the demand for more copies had grown. Several Vale Press books show a (small) variety of  labels.

It seems that some Eragny Press books were bound before they were delivered at the Vale shop, while others were bound after the quires had been delivered at the shop (Genz, p. 56). 

Had there been several binding issues, we must assume that the file copies were among the earlier copies.

There are two possible explanations for this non-standard label:

1. 

There were indeed at least two occasions on which loose quires were sent to the bindery. This does not explain why the label was designed differently, nor does it explain why copies bearing this different label have not turned up more frequently.

2.

A second explanation may lie in the slow production of copies. Perhaps Hacon & Ricketts grew impatient and sent the first sets of loose quires ahead to the binder. In that case, the label may have been printed by Ballantyne rather than by Pissarro himself. That would explain the rarity of this label and the different layout.

There is no certainty. 

On 10 June 1901, 210 copies were sent to Hacon and Ricketts (Genz, p. 167), but the bibliography does not mention whether the copies had already been bound or not. As the edition size was 226, it is possible that 16 copies were sent earlier, and bound with a similar label as the file copy. On the other hand, these may have been Pissarro's own copies that he presented to friends. Yet, why would 210 copies be sent to Hacon and Ricketts when only 200 copies were for sale (as the colophon and the prospectus both mention)?

Bibliography and reality: ships passing in the night....

773. Legros Medal of Ricketts

The medal featuring a portrait of Charles Ricketts, created by Alphonse Legros in 1897, was not produced in large numbers. Cast in bronze, these have, over the years, developed a brown patina. One example in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris has a rather mottled appearance. 

See for an image of a copy at auction in 2019 blog 410 'The Ricketts Medal by Alphonse Legros'.

Alphonse Legros, 'CR' [Charles Ricketts] (medal, 1897)
[Musée d'Orsay (inventory number MEDOR 882)]

The copy at the Musée d'Orsay (inventory number MEDOR 882) was given to the state for the Musée de Luxembourg by the artist himself.

772. Not To Be Taken Away

From 14 to 17 May, Firsts: London’s Rare Book Fair was held in London, for which various antiquarian bookshops published colourful catalogues, such as Sims Reed, and Sophie Schneideman, and highlights including a copy of the signed limited edition of The Ballad of Reading Gaol (offered by Peter Harrington) were published on the Firsts website.

Schneideman's catalogue includes among a large group of Eragny Press editions two books that were shown to clients in the Hacon & Ricketts shop, At the Sign of the Dial. Usually, these copies of Vale and Eragny Press books have the prospectus pasted in at the front. To prevent these file copies, which had likely been handled by many people, from being sold, an instruction was written in ink on the front cover:

File Copy
Not to be taken away

File copies of Eragny Press books:
Gustave Flaubert, Un Coeur simple and
La Légende de St. Julien l'Hospitalier (both 1900)

These two Eragny volumes contained stories by Gustave Flaubert: Un Coeur simple and La Légende de St. Julien l'Hospitalier (both 1900). The third Flaubert volume issued by the Eragny Press, Hérodias (1901), not a file copy like the other two, was equally available for purchase at the fair. 

These handwritten notes on Vale and Eragny Press copies were added in various hands over a number of years as office boys came and went. After the press was closed down in 1903, these copies initially remained in the possession of Charles Ricketts, who in due course gave several of them away to friends, such as Gordon Bottomley. These two ended up in the collection of his Italian friend Antonio Cippico, to whom he would later dedicate his 'Victorian masterpiece' Beyond the Threshold.

771. Published Online: The Collected Letters of Charles Ricketts

On 8 May, the three volumes of The Collected Letters of Charles Ricketts, edited by John Aplin and myself, have been published as an E-Book (PDF) by Brill (Leiden/Boston). The hardback copies will be available in June.

The Collected Letters of Charles Ricketts
(volume III). Brill, 2026

The preliminary matter - Introduction, A Charles Ricketts Chronology, Editorial Principles, Sources and Acknowledgements, Abbreviations, and the List of Figures are freely accessible on the Brill website. See the notice on Volume I on the Brill website. 

Volume III contains the Index of Books, Bookplates, Posters and Ephemera Designed or Illustrated by Ricketts, the Index of Letters by Recipient, and the General Index. These are also freely accessible, see the notice on Volume III on the Brill website.

For volume II, see also Brill's website. All in all, 2,147 letters by Charles Ricketts have been made available to scholars, students, and the general audience.

770. Another Charles Ricketts

The name Charles Ricketts is not uncommon. In the nineteenth century for example there was an Assistant Surgeon Charles Ricketts who during the Crimean War wrote a letter to The Times, reporting that the Russians killed their prisoners, there was a Charles Ricketts, officer at the Royal Fusilliers who acted in a play at the regimental theatre at Aldershott, another Charles Ricketts was accused of stealing peas and half-a-sack of bran and a bucket and brush (he pleaded guilty), and yet another Charles Ricketts, a beerhouse keeper, sold beer at 'improper hours on Sunday'. Other men called Charles Ricketts were labourers, bakers, plasterers, captains, butcher's boys, inn keepers, land owners or brick layers. Some people with this name won prizes for 'the best yearling bull'.

Website Liverpool Geological Society

On 11 February 1868, Dr. Ricketts, F.G.S. was in the chair for the monthly meeting of the Liverpool Geological Society. He also read one of the papers: 'Remarks on the Upper Silurian Formation', and his full name was given in the Liverpool Albion (17 February 1868) as Charles Ricketts, M.D., F.G.S. He is one of a few people called Charles Ricketts who besides leaving traces in archives and newspapers, published articles and books listed in library catalogues and bibliographies. All his papers have geological themes, although he was trained and worked as a surgeon.

He was born in Titchfield in 1819, the son of Dr. John Alston Ricketts (1786-1852). At a young age, he developed an interest in geology and he kept his first fossil from the Hampshire Cliffs in his collection. He was educated at Bath, graduating in medicine, and in about 1845 moved to Lancaster, and later Birkenhead (near Liverpool) where he worked as a surgeon and lived in Prince-street the greater part of his life. In October 1861 his name figured in the list of 'gentlemen on whom the degree Doctor of Medicine has just been conferred' (Fife Herald, 17 October 1861).

In June 1851, he was married at Cartmel, Lancashire, to Eliza, 'daughter of the late Thomas Clarkson' of Brackenthwaite, near Lancaster (Hampshire Telegraph, 28 June 1851). In 1852 a daughter was born, in 1853 a son (who died the next year). 

In 1863 he became a member of the Liverpool Geological Society (which was established in 1859), and in 1868 he joined the Geological Society of London. He published a paper 'On some Erratics in the Boulder-clay of Cheshire, &c., and the Conditions of Climate they denote' in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London (1885). In 1873, he published Essays On Physical Geology (printed at the Courier steam printing works). Another publication was titled Remarks on the Country around the Wrekin. A Comparison of the Carboniferous Rocks of Coalbrook Dale, with Those of Other Districts (1876). More than twenty of his papers were published in the Proceedings of the Liverpool Geological Society. He was also a member of other societies, such as the Naturalists' Field Club. 

Obituary in Geological Magazine (May 1904)

He donated his collection to the University of Liverpool. In an obituary he was described as a careful observer and an 'indefatigable worker in the field'. His kind, unobtrusive and unselfish character endeared him to many, which was displayed by a gift he received as early as 1857: ‘On Tuesday evening last, a neat and handsome skeleton timepiece was presented to Charles Ricketts, Esq., surgeon, formerly house surgeon at the Dispensary in this town, by a few friends, as small token of their esteem, for his bland and gentlemanly demeanour to all, and particularly for urbane and charitable attention to the humbler classes of Birkenhead and its vicinity’ (Lancaster Guardian, 3 January 1857).

Around 1900 Charles Ricketts moved back to Hampshire where he died on 29 February 1904. He was buried in St. Peter's Church burial ground, Curdridge, where a monument mentions the names of his father and (presumably) a sister.

769. The Other Shannon

In Canada, Ricketts noticed, Charles Shannon was confused with another Shannon, and he wrote to him: 'You of course, were confused with J.J. Shannon & I gave up explaining the difference' (26 October 1927). This was certainly not the only time Shannon was mistaken for the painter James Jubusa Shannon (1862-1923), who was born in New York, lived in Canada for a time, and moved to London when he was sixteen. Soon, he became one of the leading portrait painters, was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1897 and a member in 1909.

Sir James Jubusa Shannon, self-portrait, oil, c.1919
 © National Portrait Gallery, London

It often happened that Shannon was mistaken for him, and not because of their style, but simply because of their shared surname. Charles Shannon was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1911, and he had to wait until 1920 to be elected a full member. When he went to a meeting in the RA in 1911 (James Jubusa Shannon had been an associate of the RA for fourteen years!) the doorman did not believe him when he announced his name: 'Oh, no Sir, you are not Mr Shannon'.

In 1914, Ricketts wrote to Mary Davis about the ongoing confusion:

Shannon’s Salon picture seems to have been liked, judging from press cuttings, sent to him by an innocent firm which supplies him also with the notices on J.J [Shannon]’s picture. This I rather fancy they give to Shannon, whilst his picture is ascribed to J.J.

At a dinner in 1912, Shannon was told: 'I suppose they are your father’s pictures I have always admired in the Academy.' An interesting question, as J.J. Shannon was only one year older than Charles Shannon.

768. Atlas: the Second Study by Charles Shannon at the National Gallery of Art

Last week, this blog featured two drawings by Charles Shannon held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington. The museum has now sent me an image of the second drawing, a study of the mythological figure Atlas. The drawing is in graphite on tracing paper with the watermark of Canson & Montgolfier. Measurements are 26.6 x 21.9 cm.

Charles Shannon, study of Atlas
[National Gallery of Art, Washington DC]
[Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication]

The original owner of this study was Henry Scipio Reitlinger (1882-1950), a mining engineer who, to quote the British Museum database, 'made a fortune as a director of the Naraguta Tin Mine and other mining companies in Nigeria'. He was a captain in WWI, and later turned collector and art historian. He formed major collections of Old Master drawings, Oriental porcelain and Renaissance ceramics. 

Ricketts, Shannon and Reitlinger may have met, although there is no evidence. However, in March 1914, Ricketts supported a proposition by Reitlinger for moving a set of seven Raphael cartoons to the National Gallery in London. This did not happen and they remained at the V&A.

After Reitlinger's death, his collection was on show at the Reitlinger Bequest Museum in Maidenhead, which closed in 1987 and in 1991 the items were transferred to the Fitzwilliam Museum. Reitlinger's remaining personal collections had been auctioned at Sotheby's in 1953 and 1954. This drawing must have been sold around that time. 

It was acquired from Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd. in London by William Bainter O'Neal (1907-1994), an American professor and architectural historian who lived in Charlottesville, Virginia. He owned the Shannon drawing from 1982 until his death. It was gifted (with over 500 other art works) to the National Gallery of Art in Washington in 1995.

The figure of Atlas does not appear in any of Shannon’s other works: neither in sketches, lithographs nor paintings.

[Thanks are due to Peter Huestis, Museum Specialist, Digital Content Strategy and Experience – Imaging, National Gallery of Art, Washington]

767. Two Studies by Charles Shannon at the National Gallery of Art

There are, according to the museum's website, two studies by Charles Shannon in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington. One depicts Atlas, for an unknown painting; the second work is one of a series of chalk studies for a painting of 'The Good Samaritan', dated 1918. No painting with this title has survived, but after Shannon died in 1937, a large series of chalk and coloured drawings on the subject were sold.

Charles Shannon, study for 'The Good Samaritan', signed 'CS 1918'
[National Gallery of Art, Washington DC]
[Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication]

Sotheby's 1939 sale was recorded in the Catalogue of Fine Paintings by Old Masters and Modern Drawings (London, Sotheby’s, 14 June 1939) when the property of 'C.H. Shannon, R.A. (decd.)' was sold by order of the executors. Lot number 8 was described - briefly - as 'The Good Samaritan at the Inn Door', the coloured design[,] Thirteen various Studies[,] Chalks'. The lot was sold for £6 5s to Martin Birnbaum, an American dealer and art critic who had been a longtime friend of Ricketts and Shannon.

This particular study of two male figures for the 'Good Samaritan' was acquired by William Henry Donner in Montreux in the late 1930s (this is what the museum's website tells us, but possibly Donner acquired it in the early 1940s). The study went to his daughter, Dora Donner Ide and, in 1999, Mr. and Mrs. John Jay Ide from San Francisco donated the drawing to the National Gallery of Art.

766. The Real Name of Thom Winslow

Many names and dates mentioned in the previous two blog posts need correcting. Names have been misspelled in various publications and on websites, and birth years and even nationalities have been mixed up. But I think we’ve sorted it out. The solution began to emerge thanks to an email from Martin Steenson of Books & Things in London (here is the the shop's website): 'I would have thought there is a possibility that Mrs Winslow (nee Thomas) had a nickname of Thom.'

To get straight to the point: that’s correct. Mrs Henry Winslow must be the ‘Thom’ to whom Ricketts gave this copy of Beyond the Threshold as a gift upon its publication.

Charles Ricketts, dedication to 'Thom Winslow'
in Beyond the Threshold (1929)

The name Marius Winslow appears as an owner's entry at the front of the book. 

Martin Steenson found the name of Marius Winslow on a genealogy website (Ancestry). There, the name is linked to Florian Carr, which was the name taken by the Winslows’ daughter after her second marriage. She was apparently his ‘probate’. 

The website states that his name is Marius Kempton Winslow, and that he was born in 1917 and died on 20 December 1959 (the English & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007 corroborates this date). That would explain the later gift of a painting to the Ashmolean Museum 'in memory of Helen, Henry and Marius Winslow' in 1975, undoubtedly by the same Florian Carr.

However, the site introduces an error about Florian, stating that she was the elder 'son' of the Winslows, born on 17 March 1914. (All dates on this website are questionable.) Of course, Florian was their only daughter. The mother is introduced as 'Helen Sterling' (1880-1943). This cannot be correct. Sterling was not her family name, it was her middle name. She was not born in 1880 in Cleveland, and in 1960 was very much alive, when she was mentioned in a note about deaths in The Times of 13 January 1960: 

On 9th January, 1960, suddenly, at his house in Switzerland, Henry Winslow, husband of Helen Sterling. 

This is supported by a notice in the 'In Memoriam' section of The Times, dated 30 January 1976:

WINSLOW. - In memory of Helen Sterling Winslow, painter in tempera, died 28th January, 1973.

These notices tell us that Henry Winslow did not die in 1953 or 1955, as several sources including the British Museum assert, but in 1960. We still have to assume that he was born in 1875.

The names of both children and their mother can be found in The New York Times of 31 October 1936:

The New York Times, 31 October 1936

Helen Sterling Wilson was the sister of Gertrude S. Thomas who died on 2 October 1935. There were to be two trust funds for 'Florian Winslow Johnstone [...] and Marius Winslow', niece and nephew of the deceased. From this we can conclude that Helen was not a British painter born in 1890, but an American. The genealogy of the Thomas family has partially been published in The Sterling Genealogy by Albert Mack Sterling (New York: The Grafton Press, 1909). Gertrude Streator Thomas and Helen Sterling Thomas were children of Helen Gertrude Streator and Eben B. Thomas, the former a descendent of William Sterling of Haverhill, Mass., the latter a railroad manager who became president of the Lehigh Valley Railway system. Gertrude was born on 5 June 1873, Helen was born on 18 November 1877. 

Around 1900 she published stories, and kept doing so, see for example 'The Heart's Desire in Blue Sky (May 1900), 'The Wonder-Worker' in Scribner's Magazine (August 1914) and the 'Tytgat the Toy-Man' (in the same, June 1921).

The New York Times of 2 September 1911 carried a notice on 'Marriage':

WINSLOW - THOMAS. - In Paris, France. Sept. 1. Helen Sterling, daughter of Mr. and Mrs E.B. Thomas, to Henry Winslow.

Helen Sterling Thomas was in her early thirties when she married in Paris, and apparently the couple moved to London shortly afterwards, where their daughter and son were born. At around that time she turned to etching and painting. Her middle name was spelled 'Stirling' by herself on some of her paintings, such as 'Pieta' (Christie's auction 2008), which helped to create confusion.

Signature of Helen Sterling Winslow on 'Pieta' (undated tempera painting)

In short, Henry Winslow (c.1875-1960) was an American painter, who went to art school in Paris where he may have met Helen Sterling Thomas (1877-1973). She was an American author and painter whose nickname may have been Thom. This would explain Ricketts's dedication to the American painter: 'To Thom Winslow | This Victorian masterpiece | From its | British author'. 

The Winslows owned at least two paintings by Ricketts, 'The Trojan Women', donated by the Winslows to the Manchester Art Gallery in 1948 and 'Jephthah's Daughter' which was presented by them to the Ashmolean Museum in 1946. They had lent these paintings to the memorial exhibition for Ricketts in 1933, which also included four designs for stage costumes from their collection: drawings for 'A Winter's Tale', a costume for Siegmund and two designs for Shaw's 'Saint Joan'. The Winslows also had acquired paintings by Charles Shannon: 'Toilet Scene I' and 'Toilet Scene II', both given to Manchester Art Gallery, also in 1948. Both artists and collectors must have been close to Ricketts's heart. Ricketts oversaw the interior design of their St John's Wood house. In January 1929 he trusted them with news about Shannon after his accident so that he himself would not be bothered too much in the stressful situation. To Thomas Sturge Moore he wrote:

Dont write I find letters upsetting. News is given to friends at about 12 oc at the 'phone Primrose Hill 0570. The Winslows are kept informed.

Sturge Moore saw to it that two of Ricketts's stories in his posthumous Unrecorded Histories were dedicated to Henry and Helen Winslow.

765. More on the Winslows?

By April 1938, Helen and Henry Winslow had donated a Japanese artwork to the British Museum in memory of Charles Ricketts. The museum gives the following description:

Amida sanzon raigo zu 阿弥陀三尊来迎図
Painting, hanging scroll mounted as a panel. Amida standing on lotus pedestal, his hands in mudra, and halo with fifteen rays of light; on left Seishi kneeling on lotus pedestal, hands clasped in prayer; on right Kannon on lotus pedestal holding lotus pedestal for the worshipper. Ink, colours and gold on silk.

'Amida sanzon raigo zu'
British Museum
Museum number1938,0108,0.1
© The Trustees of the British Museum
[Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution
-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence]

The painting (124.40 by 56.30 cm) dates from the fourteenth century and was in the collection of Baron Kawasaki Shozo, which was dispersed at auction in 1928. The Winslows purchased in at the sale, and probably decided to donate it to the BM after Ricketts's own collection had been bequeathed to the Museum from the estate of Charles Shannon.

The pair had a daughter, called Florian, or Ann. She married Thomas Julian Johnstone on 11 May 1935. On 20 September 1951 she married Charles Francis Carr. Later in life she lived on Guernsey. Florian Carr died on 2 May 2007.

In 1973, after Helen Winslow had died, Florian Carr donated some wood-engravings by Ricketts to the V&A. These were proofs of 'Psyche in the House' and 'The Flight of Cupid' (on Chinese paper, numbered '2'), published in the Vale Press edition of Apuleius, De Cupidinis et Psyches amoribus fabula anilis (1901).

We might assume that Florian Carr was also involved in a posthumous exhibition of her father's work in the Gerald M. Norman Gallery in Duke Street in February 1975: 'Henry Winslow (Whistler's pupil)'. Winslow was born exactly one hundred years earlier.

She certainly contacted the British Museum to provide biographical information about her father: 

Draughtsman and printmaker. b.Boston, trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. For a time a pupil of Whistler. Large collection in MFA, Boston (Information from Mrs C F Carr, a descendant in 2004).

It is likely that the life dates in the BM database are also based on her information: 1875-1953 (*). She left sixteen Japanese woodblock prints to the Ashmolean Museum. Her name was mentioned as Florian (Winslow) Carr. She also supported the London Library, enabling 'major building improvement'.

However, the sources – newspapers, museum and library websites, etc. – never mention Thom Winslow’s name. For now, he remains an enigma.

Henry Winslow's Poems

In 1953, Henry Winslow's book Poems was issued in Locarno, probably a posthumous publication, intended for his friends. 

Henry Winslow, Poems (1953)

It seems that Winslow wrote these poems towards the end of his life, as he was losing his sight. There are a few dedications, but none to his wife or child(ren). The poetry offers no insight into his family life, apart from his love for Helen.

What brought you on that day you sat for me?

Although I strove so hard to draw your head

Without a flaw, I could not ever see

Aught save those eyes of yours [...]

Still in my studio the drawing lies,

Begun but never finished, save the eyes.

(p. 28)

In another poem, he argues that he gave his heart and soul away, like the fool of fools:

                             and found a heart more brave,

A soul more tender, true; so I was wise

For all my folly, winning such a prize.

(p. 40)

The question remains: who is Thom Winslow, who, in 1929, received a dedication copy of Ricketts's Beyond the Threshold?

(*) For correct dates and names, please see blog No. 766: 'The Real Name of Thom Winslow'.

764. Who was Thom Winslow?

Included in the Oscar Wilde collection of Jeremy J. Mason (Bonhams auction of 18 February 2026) was a copy of Charles Ricketts's Beyond the Threshold (1929). Ricketts was quite proud of this late achievement for which he designed an imposing binding and made five pen drawings - and, of course, he had written the story incorporating a few prose poems that he ascribed to Oscar Wilde. The copy in the Mason sale is one of many dedication copies. This one is especially dear:

To Thom Winslow

          This Victorian Masterpiece

                     From its

                    British author

                       C. Ricketts

Charles Ricketts, Beyond the Threshold (1929)
Dedication to Thom Winslow
[photo Bonhams, London]

But who is Thom Winslow? 

Henry Winslow

The only Winslow I am aware of with whom Ricketts was on friendly terms was the American painter Henry Winslow, about whom, incidentally, little is known for certain. Born in 1874 or 1875 – depending on the source – Henry Winslow probably died in 1953 or 1955(*). He was a graphic artist, primarily an etcher, who left America for Paris to study at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, also under James McNeill Whistler. He later moved to London, where Ricketts often saw him during the Great War. He was naturalised in 1927 (presumably). He was a member of the New English Art Club. In December 1926 his works were shown at the Dudensing Galleries, in 1937 etchings were exhibited at the Fine Art Society, and in 1949 his watercolours were on display at Kensington Art Gallery (along with works by his wife Helen, Ethel Pye and others). Every now and then he also exhibited in the USA. His work was exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1912 and 1945. His addresses were mentioned in the catalogues. Between 1922 and 1937 he lived at 24, Marlborough Place, St. John's Wood  (1922-1937).

In November 1920, Mrs Henry Winslow required a cook and parlour-maid when the couple were living at 1 Hill Road, Abbey Road, St. John's Wood (a notice was published in The Times). This was in the neighbourhood of Ricketts and Shannon, and also Mary and Edmund Davis, and, Edmund Dulac. (This address was mentioned in the 1921 catalogue of the Royal Academy). In fact, after World War 2, the Winslows let Dulac and his wife Helen stay in their house in St John’s Wood after the Dulacs found their studio at Ladbroke Road flooded. 

Mrs Henry Winslow was Helen Stirling Winslow, née Thomas (1890-1973) (*), an artist in her own right and also a member of the New English Art Club. In March 1914, she exhibited etchings at R. Gutekunst's Gallery. One of her undated paintings (Pieta) mentioned the later address of 64 Marlborough Place along with a Swiss one: 'Villa Helios, Minusio, Tieuro, Switzerland'. Her work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1941 and 1945 (her address at the time was: Dolphins, Thame, Oxon, and so was Henry's).

In 1953, a poetry collection by Henry Winslow - with the rather unremarkable title Poems - was published by a local Swiss publisher: Arte Grafiche Carminati in Locarno. 

Thom and Marius Winslow

A search of newspapers does not yield a biography of Thom Winslow. There are snippets mentioning a Mrs Thomas Winslow, who seems to have nothing to do with the family. 

The dedication copy of Beyond the Threshold also has another name written on the first free endpaper: 'Marius Winslow'. He is associated with the sale of some original Dulac drawings for an illustrated edition of Treasure Island (1927). Marius and Henry are probably family members - I have no access to archives that can proof this assumption (*). The Ashmolean Museum, however, owns a painting that was purchased with the assistance of a gift in memory of Helen, Henry and Marius Winslow in 1975. No Thom is mentioned! Was Ricketts mistaken and had he intended this copy for Henry Winslow in the first place?

(*) For correct dates and names, please see blog No. 766: 'The Real Name of Thom Winslow'.

763. A Seated Figure by an Archway

Today, Lawrences of Bletchinley in Surrey continue an auction of Antiques and Collectables that started yesterday and will end tomorrow, selling 1725 items: carpets, enamel signs, fly rods, tools, guitars, stamps, terracotta plaques, stoneware, silver salvers, jewellery, but also oils, drawings, pastels, lithographs and other prints.

 

One of the lots contains a drawing by Charles Shannon. It is described as a pencil drawing, a study of a seated figure by an archway. The initials C.H.S. can be seen in the lower right hand corner, the format is 26 by 18 cm. 

C.H.S. [Charles Shannon?], 
Seated Figure by an Archway
(undated pencil drawing)

There seems to be no lithograph or painting that can be connected to this study. The three initials C.H.S. seem to indicate that this might be an early drawing.

At £10, the opening price seems reasonable.(*)

(*) Hammer price: £110.

762. A Fictional Cover for A Comedy of Masks (1893)

Late 1892, in an undated letter, the poet and prose writer Ernest Dowson (1867-1900) wrote to his former fellow student at Oxford, Charles Sayle (1864-1924), that the novel Dowson had written with another fellow student, Arthur Moore (1866-1952), had been accepted by publisher William Heinemann in London. The novel, started in 1890, would be published in three volumes in the autumn of 1893. 

Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore, A Comedy of Masks
London: William Heinemann, 1893
[Photo: Maggs Bros., London]

Dowson wrote to Sayle, who had by then begun a career as a librarian and bibliographer:

Heinemann has accepted our novel, but is vague about dates, which is tedious of him.

(New Letters from Ernest Dowson. Edited & with a Preface by Desmond Flower. Andoversford: The Whittington Press, 1984, p. 16. Here the letter is dated 'late November 1889'. However, almost all issues discussed point to 1892, for example: 'Alas! the 'Albemarle' is dead'. The Albemarle Review was published between January and September 1892.)

The proofs for the first edition started arriving in February 1893, and were still occupying the writers in August. In mid-September 1893, the book was finally announced in various newspapers and magazines, such as The Academy of 16 September 1893. The intention had been to publish the book on 15 September, but it came out on 22 September. Heinemann's advertisements after publication appeared on 28 September 1893, for example in The Morning Post: 'Mr. Heinemann's New Books', claiming that it was available 'At all Libraries', meaning Charles Edward Mudie's lending library.

By that time, Dowson wrote to Victor Plarr: 

The Comedy is out at last - very charming in its outward, visible aspect, and for the rest I hope no one will discover as many inward blemishes as I can.

(The Letters of Ernest Dowson. Collected & Edited by Desmond Flower and Henry Maas. London: Cassell & Company Ltd., 1967, p. 293)

A reprint in one volume was mentioned in The Bookseller on 4 August 1894.

Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore, A Comedy of Masks
London: William Heinemann, 1894 
[first one-volume edition]
[Photo: Maggs Bros., London]

The bindings of the first edition are stamped with an ornament combining a burning torch with a pair of masks, one for comedy and one for tragedy, the classic symbols of Thalia and Melpomene, representing the performing arts. The later, single-volume edition does not show a drama mask, but three comedy masks on a shield, the middle one representing an antique Greek mask.

But the book cover could have looked very different.

In early September 1893, Dowson received a sketch for the cover from Heinemann:

They have just sent us a suggested design for the cover - a tragic and comic mask with liberty to substitute what we like - within 5 days!! Of course in the time one can not do nothing: otherwise perhaps Horne or Ricketts might have been requisitioned.

(The Letters, p. 291)

Herbert Horne was a personal friend of Dowson. Ricketts met him twice when John Gray (or perhaps Laurence Binyon) brought Dowson to The Vale. Dowson was impressed by Silverpoints. Gray had sent him a dedication copy. Its cover by Ricketts was 'indescribably dainty', Dowson wrote (The Letters, p. 238).

If he had known that Ricketts sometimes worked very quickly, this book might have had a more attractive, even unforgettable appearance, although Ricketts himself might not have appreciated the novel.

761. Had Zimri Peace Who Slew His Master?

Harry Quilter (1851-1907), whose work was ridiculed by both James McNeill Whistler and Oscar Wilde, gave Shannon and Ricketts the opportunity to create drawings for his magazine The Universal Review. He would reproduce two of these drawings, both by Charles Shannon, in his art historical work Preferences in Art, Life and Literature (1892).

Preferences contained 67 illustrations. However, a deluxe large-paper edition also appeared. These numbered copies contain 114 illustrations, 56 of which were printed in autotype, mounted on additional sheets with the titles and names of the artists handwritten in ink. Among those additional illustrations are a drawing by Shannon and one by Ricketts, the latter titled 'Had Zimri Peace Who Slew His Master?'

Charles Ricketts, 'Had Zimri Peace Who Slew His Master?'
(The Universal Review, 15 August 1889)
[Photo: Jos Uljee]

The original illustration in The Universal Review measured 17.9 by 13.8 cm; the autotype reproduction was larger: 21.4 by 16.4 cm. Both the title and the name contained mistakes: Ricketts's name was given as 'H.S. Ricketts', the title was given as 'Jezebel', which was the title of the story that Ricketts and Shannon had illustrated.

Charles Ricketts, 'Had Zimri Peace Who Slew His Master?'
(published as 'Jezebel' in
Preferences in Art, Life and Literature (1892), facing page 232)

It is unclear whether Ricketts or Shannon ever laid eyes on that deluxe edition, but we do know that their friend, the poet Gordon Bottomley, was proud to have obtained a copy after years of searching. (Apparently, Bottomley had never managed to find a copy of the original reproduction in The Universal Review.)

He wrote in a letter that accompanied a copy of the book he sent as a Christmas present to Thomas Sturge Moore (13 December 1926):

We are far from Christmas yet, but I am sending your Christmas present with this as the post-office won't have it, and it too will probably take time on the railway – though I shall send it by passenger train.
It comes with a great deal of love from Emily and me to you and Marie. Of course my commercial soul is distressed by the foreknowledge that you will want to cut it up and take out the only things that are of value, for its price is going up steadily! But here it is for you to do as you like with; and we are happy in sending it, for we know you will rejoice in the superb reproduction of Ricketts’ “Jezebel” and the other treasures as much as we do.
It was really a great happiness when we found this copy some months ago, and we at once said we must have it for you.

[Quoted after the edition by John Aplin, Complete Correspondence of Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore. Volume 3: 1926-1948 (Letters 578-911) on the online platform Intelex, July 2020].