678. A Series of Cartoons by Charles Shannon (3)

The drawings Shannon placed in The Alarum served two purposes: making money and raising name awareness. The drawings themselves could not be sensational; they were not supposed to be artistic, but more or less amusing or entertaining.

Charles Shannon, in The Alarum, Vol. 1, No. 3 (3 November 1886), p. 10

Many of these drawings take place in society, sometimes in unfamiliar, accidental company, such as in the modern means of transport, the train. Shannon contributed two drawings to the third number of The Alarum (for the other one, see last week's blog). 

In a railway carriage, a young American man sits opposite an older Englishman (hat, umbrella, lorgnon), who sits in the corner near the window. A lady, reading a newspaper, does not take part in the conversation.

First Traveller. - "I reckon, Stranger, this pace wouldn't pay in America."

Second traveller (satirically). "I suppose you go so fast you can't see the villages?"

First Traveller. - "You bet. That's nothing : they go at such a lick over there that standing in a village you can't see the train pass."

Could Shannon himself have laughed at this drawing?

677. A Series of Cartoons by Charles Shannon (2)

While Ricketts had no experience in drawing cartoons when he and Shannon started collaborating on The Alarum in 1886, his companion had. Indeed, Shannon had previously published such drawings in a comic weekly, Judy, or, The London Serio-Comic Journal, which was edited by C.H. Ross. 

Charles Shannon, 'De Trop' (unsigned).
In Judy, or The London Serio-Comic Journal, volume 37, 25 November 1885, p. 255.

Shannon started there as a contributor in November 1885, following in the footsteps of Reginald Savage whose first cartoon in Judy was published on 27 May 1885. Most of Shannon's drawings were glimpses of society life.

While the collaboration on The Alarum was short-lived, Shannon's drawings were continued in Judy until February 1888. 

His second drawing in The Alarum (Vol. 1, No. 3, 3 November 1886, p. 7) was another society scene called 'Child of the Period'.

C.H. Shannon, 'Child of the Period'
(The Alarum, 3 November 1886, p. 7)

Sitting at a dining table are six people: two men, three women and a girl, attended by a servant who is pouring wine. The woman on the left hand site of the table is the mother of the child who says:

'I don't like mutton, Mamma.'

Mother: 'Think of the poor children who would only be too pleased to have it.'

Child: 'But if they don't have it, how do you know they like it, Mamma?'

676. A Series of Cartoons by Charles Shannon (1)

Between 20 October 1886 and 12 March 1887, a weekly satirical magazine was published of which only one copy has survived (in the British Library). It was called Alarum, subtitled: A Panorama of the Times. Its headpiece showed a running trumpeter and in the foreground the figure of Britannia resting next to a shield with the Union Jack. The slogan ‘Awake! Arise!! or be for ever fallen!!!’ appeared below the title. Priced one penny, it was printed on the day of issue by the firm of Page, Pratt, & Turner at 5, 6 and 7 Ludgate Circus Buildings, next door to the Alarum Newspaper Company which was housed at No. 4. 

The Alarum, Vol. 1, No. 1, 20 October 1886

The 'Introduction' to the first issue stated: 'Why are we a novelty? Because not a single member of our staff, from the Editor to the office-boy, receives a farthing for his services', and: 'Our sole ends and aims are for your instruction and amusement'. 

Charles Ricketts contributed five drawings starting with the first issue. Shannon's drawings appeared from number 2 tot number 4. All his drawings were dated ('86'). Their friend Reginald Savage published one drawing in the second number. The authorship of the captions and texts of these drawings has not been ascertained. The magazine ran a competition for cartoons and the winning illustration was rewarded with publication and a prize of one pound. Both Ricketts and Shannon published more than one drawing in one of the issues, which must mean they were rewarded in another way, or they hoped to attract attention of other magazines for paid work. They discontinued their collaboration after 10 November 1886.

Charles Shannon, illustration in The Alarum, Vol. 1, No. 2 (27 October 1886)

Shannon's first illustration is set in a large garden with a pond, a group of ladies near terrace steps and, in the foreground, under the shade of a tree, three women and a child seated at a table or on a bench. The girl asks: 'Do you like babies? We have one at home.' A 'guest'  answers: 'Your dear little brother?' And the girl says: 'You can have it if you like, but don't tell mama.' 

It is a well-balanced realistic drawing, and although Shannon would depict women and children often in his lithographs and paintings, at the time of this drawing he was mostly painting religious scenes of saints in watercolour.

675. A Bibliographical Alphabet

The last book published by the Vale Press was a bibliography of its publications, compiled by Ricketts who was not a bibliographer. Distributed in 1904, 250 copies were printed on paper and ten on vellum. John Lane sold 75 copies that were destined for America.

A Bibliography of the Books Issued by Hacon & Ricketts (1904)
[Living Histories, The University of Newcastle, Australia]

I have traced the current location of 122 copies of A Bibliography of the Books Issued by Hacon & Ricketts in libraries and museums. There are paper or vellum copies in the following cities (excluding 4 copies in private collections):

A

Adelaide, SA (Australia): 2 copies

Albany, NY (USA)

Amherst, MA (USA).

Amsterdam (The Netherlands)

Ann Arbor, MI (USA)

Athens, GA (USA)

Austin, TX (USA): 2 copies

B

Berkeley, CA (USA)

Berlin (Germany)

Birmingham (Great Britain)

Boston, MA (USA): 3 copies

Brooklyn, NY (USA)

Buffalo, NY (USA)

C

Cambridge (Great Britain): 2 copies

Cambridge, MA (USA): 1 copy + 1 vellum copy

Canberra, CT (Australia): 2 copies

Canton, NY (USA)

Cardiff (Great Britain)

Cedar Falls, IA (USA)

Charlottesville, VI (USA)

Chicago, IL (USA): 2 copies

Clairemont, IL (USA): 2 copies

Cleveland, OH (USA)

Clinton, NY (USA)

Colorado Springs, CO (USA)

Columbia, MO (USA)

Columbus, OH (USA)

D

Dallas, TX (USA)

Davis, CA (USA)

Detroit, MI (USA)

Dublin (Ireland)

E

Edinburgh (Great Britain)

G

Glasgow (Great Britain): 2 copies

H

The Hague (The Netherlands): 2 copies

Hanover, NH (USA)

Hartford, CT (USA)

Haverhill, MA (USA)

Houston, TX (USA)

Hull (Great Britain)

K

Kalamazoo, MI (USA)

L

Leuven/Louvain (Belgium)

Lexington, KY (USA)

Liverpool (Great Britain)

London (Great Britain): 3 copies + 1 vellum copy

Los Angeles, CA (USA): 2 copies

M

Madison, WI (USA):2 copies

Mainz (Germany)

Manchester (Great Britain): 3 copies + 1 vellum copy

Melbourne, VI (Australia)

Middletown, CT (USA)

Minneapolis , MN (USA)

Minnetonka, MN (USA)

Montréal, QC (Canada)

N

New Haven, CT (USA): 3 copies

New York, NY (USA): 4 copies

Newcastle, NS (Australia)

Normal, IL (USA)

Northampton, MA (USA)

Norwich (Great Britain)

O

Oakland, CA (USA): 2 copies

Oberlin, OH (USA)

Oxford (Great Britain): 2 copies

P

Philadelphia, PE (USA)

Princeton, NJ (USA)

Providence, RI (USA): 2 copies

Provo, UT (USA)

R

Reading (Great Britain)

Richmond, VI (USA): 2 copies

Rochester, NY (USA)

S

Sacramento, CA (USA)

St. Louis, MO (USA)

Salt Lake City, UT (USA)

San Francisco, CA (USA): 3 copies

San Marino, CA (USA)

Santa Barbara, CA (USA)

Seattle, WA (USA)

Stanford, CA (USA)

Swarthmore, PA (USA)

T

Tempe, AR (USA)

Toronto, ON (Canada)

U

Urbana, IL (USA)

V

Vancouver, BC (Canada)

W

Washington, DC (USA): 4 copies

Waterville, ME (USA)

Wellesley, MA (USA)

Wellington (New Zealand)

West Lafayette, IN (USA)

Williamstown, MA (USA)

Winnipeg, MB (Canada)

A Bibliography of the Books Issued by Hacon & Ricketts (1904)
A rather cropped copy on Internet Archive
[from the collection of the Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA (USA)]

Ranked by country:

Australia: 6

Belgium: 1

Canada: 4

Germany: 2

Great Britain: 21

Ireland: 1

The Netherlands: 3

New Zealand: 1

USA: 83

How many copies were sold in the USA in the first years after publication cannot be ascertained, but in later years, probably especially in the rich post-World War II period, many copies ended up in university libraries and other collections, more than the 75 copies intended for America.

Of the traced copies, more than 66% are in American libraries. Europe holds only 23% of all copies. More than 96% of all copies can be found in English-speaking countries.

(These findings cannot be separated from my dependence on cataloguing systems such as WorldCat:  for the time being locating copies in South America, Asia and Africa, for instance, remains extremely time-consuming.)

674. Four studies for Hermes

And yet again, an original drawing by Charles Shannon is on sale, this time in London at Roseberys in the auction of Old Master, British & European Pictures on 9 July. Lot 513 is described rather briefly as 'Studies of male nudes'.

The drawing is done in black and red chalk on paper and has a modest size: 24.7 x 34.2 cm. It is not dated but signed with initials ‘CS’ (lower left).

Charles Shannon, studies for a male nude (undated)

Actually, they are not studies of different male models, but clearly four variations for one figure.

In the centre is the largest sketch of a hunched and moving man who has raised his arms above his shoulders and neck. A separate sketch of the head is drawn in the lower right-hand corner. Top left is a study of his bent left arm. Below is a sketch of his other arm holding a staff.

The unusual pose and sketch of the arm with staff betrays the subject of this sketch: it is a portrait of 'Hermes and the Infant Bacchus'. Shannon counted this mythological theme among his favourites. He made at least three oil paintings with this subject in the thirty years after devoting a lithograph to it in 1897: 'The Infancy of Bacchus'.

Charles Shannon, 'The Infancy of Bacchus', lithograph, 1897

[British Museum: 1899,0321.10]

[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

Obviously, in the lithograph the image is mirrored. The three paintings are all tondos in different sizes.

1.

‘Hermes and the Infant Bacchus’ (31 in. by 31 in.)

Date: 1906 [exhibited 1907].

Location unknown. 

2.

‘Hermes and the Infant Bacchus’ or ‘The Infant Bacchus' (78.5 x 78.5 cm; 43 in. by 43 in.)

Date: 1908.

Location: Tate Gallery, London. 

3.

‘Hermes and the Infant Bacchus’ (40 in. by 41 in.)

Date: 1926. 

Location: Usher Gallery, Lincoln 

Charles Shannon, 'Hermes and the Infant Bacchus' (1908)
[Location: Tate Gallery, London]

The leaf with studies is for one of these paintings and could date from 1905 to 1926. Roseberys' estimate is £500-£700 (opening bid: £340).