With the deadline for the copy of The Collected Letters of Charles Ricketts fast approaching, John Aplin and I, as editors, are working feverishly to dot the i's and cross the t's. One of the major tasks was the general index compiled by John, which I have just finished reading. Some people (myself included) enjoy reading indexes. They always tell the story in a different way. I won't spoil the surprise of how this works with Ricketts's letters; you'll want to discover that for yourselves. For now, let's just look at the A and the Z. What is the first keyword in the index and what is the last?
The Abbey Theatre in Dublin is mainly mentioned in the footnotes of letters from Ricketts to W.B. Yeats and Katharine Bradley in which he comments on certain actors or plays, such as Frank Fay and Lady Gregory, both co-founders of the theatre. At the end of 1905 Ricketts wrote to Yeats:
We hope you are well & all your friends in Ireland 'the nation of the Drama' and that Dublin thinks of nothing else but plays.
In a letter to the Editor of The Times (21 February 1912) Ricketts mentioned the Abbey Theatre in his plea for 'Municipal Drama and Opera'.
Zoffany, Johan III. 1433, 1446
In the mean time, realizing that you have £1,000 till March, I have made some enquiries concerning a most exceptional life size full length by Zoffany (woman in blue silk dress, book in hand sitting under a tree) which sold last year for £600. The name Zoffany does not convey the exceptional merit of the work which recalled an early Gainsborough with something more explicit (almost French) in the workmanship. The Dealer had purchased it on commission.
In a letter to the Editor of The Times (21 February 1912) Ricketts mentioned the Abbey Theatre in his plea for 'Municipal Drama and Opera'.
Zoffany, Johan III. 1433, 1446
The name of Zoffany came up in two letters to Eric Brown of the National Gallery in Ottawa when Ricketts was appointed their advisor in December 1923. Ricketts wrote:
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Johann Zoffany, 'Self-portrait as David with the head of Goliath' (1756) [National Gallery of Victoria] |
However, soon it turned out that the painting was unobtainable, because a collector did not want to part with it. Johann Zoffany (Johannes Josephus Zaufallij) was a German neoclassical painter who was born in 1733 and moved to England in 1760. He died in Chiswick in 1810.