557. Charles Shannon's Lithograph 'Winter'

One of the readers of this blog approached me with a question about the paper on which Charles Shannon's 1898 lithograph 'Winter' was printed. 'Winter' shows a woman carrying a bundle of faggots through a doorway and a kneeling man, seen from behind, assembling another bundle. Shannon made only 25 impressions in grey, mostly on Van Gelder paper. A signed copy of this edition is in the collection of the British Museum. 

Charles Shannon, 'Winter' (Lithograph, 1898)
(Image: The British Museum: 1899,0321.9
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International 
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license)

Especially in the parts of the litho that are left blank (and of course also in the unprinted areas around the lithograph), the chain lines of this paper are clearly visible.

Charles Shannon, 'Winter' (Lithograph, 1898) [detail]
(Image: The British Museum: 1899,0321.9
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International 
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license)

Our correspondent reported that the paper of his copy of the lithograph did not have chain lines. He knew that the lithograph was also printed as a transfer lithograph in John and Elizabeth Robins Pennell's book, Lithography and Lithographers (1898). These prints were made by the firm of Thomas Way. However, the paper was not in accordance with this edition either. Way printed the lithograph on a smooth, white paper; a  yellowish frame of about 7 mm is clearly visible around the lithograph. The glazed paper sheet in this edition was smaller than the lithograph that our blog friend had acquired.

Charles Shannon, 'Winter' (Lithograph, 1898) [Detail]
Published in Lithography and Lithographers

The image measures 175 x 147 mm, the sheet in Pennell's edition measures 306 x 265 mm. 

However, apart from the ordinary edition a deluxe edition was published on Japanese vellum (a paper that was manufactured to imitate parchment). Only 16 copies of this signed large-paper edition were produced. The sheets in these copies are larger and measure about 343 x 272 mm. The paper has a yellowish colour (no chain lines). 

And these qualities did match the lithograph of our correspondent. Apparently it was a print intended, but unused, for the deluxe edition of Pennell's Lithography and Lithographers. 

The impressions in the deluxe edition, by the way, are much better and more detailed than those in the regular edition - see, for example, the depiction of the back of the kneeling man.

Charles Shannon, 'Winter' (Lithograph, 1898) [Detail]
Published in the deluxe edition of
Lithography and Lithographers

Charles Shannon, 'Winter' (Lithograph, 1898) [Detail]
Published in the regular edition of Lithography and Lithographers