724. A Male Nude by C.H. Shannon

Bonhams in London, in an auction of British and European Art (19 June 2025), offers two drawings by Charles Shannon in a rather carelessly described lot (see lot 8). 

Study for The Capture; Male nude study
two, one signed with initials and dated 'C S 1927' (in pencil, lower left), and inscribed 'The Capture' (in pencil, lower right); the other signed with initials (lower left)
one watercolour and pencil, the other black and white chalks
the largest 34 x 38 cm (13 3/8 x 14 15/16in). (2)
unframed

Study by Edward Joseph Paynter
British and European Art, Bonhams, 19 June 2025

The illustrations indeed show two drawings by Shannon, but also the backside of three chalk drawings by an artist whose name is not mentioned in the description, but can be identified as Edward Joseph Paynter (1870-1945). Their value is apparently considered to be minimal.

Shannon's 'Male nude study' is in black and white chalk on blue prepared paper.

Charles Shannon, Male nude study
British and European Art, Bonhams, 19 June 2025

This study depicts a naked man seen from behind. His right arm is stretched upwards as if he is reaching for something. It could be a preliminary study for the nude figure in his 1921-22 painting 'The Golden Age'. There was also a 1907 version, which was called 'an ambitious idyl with nudes and half-draped figures under trees'. (Both paintings: whereabouts unknown.)

Charles Shannon, 'The Golden Age' (1921-22)

To the right of the centre, there is a man standing in roughly the same position. After swimming, he reaches for a towel or a piece of clothing hanging over a tree branch.

723. Charles Ricketts and The Vasari Society (7)

Raphael is one of those artists whom Charles Ricketts attempted to portray in a nuanced manner in his study The Prado and Its Masterpieces (1904), partly because of the difficulty of attributing certain works to him, given that he employed such a large number of assistants. 

Other pictures which left Raphael's studio as his work are really his, though the work of the assistant and the restorer may have intervened. [...] I would advocate a more guarded way of specifying the importance of an assistant in a picture than is now prevalent.
If the design of a work (the structural element of its visible presence) belongs to the master, behind it we notice his intellectual bent, and are able to estimate the creative force which was his. The modern tendency is to recognise, if possible, evidence of an assistant's hand, find his name, and so to dismiss the work forthwith as by the master 'only in part'. This is misleading. 

(p. 104)

Ricketts described some paintings in detail, such as 'The Holy Family with the Lamb': 

[...] like most of the smaller pictures belonging to Raphael's Tuscan period, it is more mature than his more important early works, in which the elements influencing him occur in a state of perplexing fusion [...] It is free from repainting, if a little over-cleaned.

(p. 105-106)

He referred to it as

[...] a delightful idyll which curiously reveals the temper of the Renaissance; the Virgin is represented as a bland yet charming woman, the Holy Child is playing with the lamb, the symbol of his sacrifice, whilst St. Joseph leans on his traveller's staff, a charmed spectator.

(p. 106)

Nevertheless, his sympathy lay with another painting, which generally enjoyed a lower reputation, but whose workmanship he admired more: 'Portrait of a Cardinal'.

Raphael, 'Portrait of a Cardinal' (c. 1510-1511)
[The Prado, Madrid]

According to Ricketts the 'slight coldness in scale of colour' was attributable 'to the picture-cleaner'. He admired 'the delicate modelling of the mouth', while the cap and cape were painted 'with extraordinary care and breadth' (p. 106-107).

We may sometimes feel out of touch and out of love with Raphael, but with him we are never conscious of vagueness and insufficiency: touch the outer softness of his work, and we feel the pulse of a tremendous vitality.

(p. 116)

Ultimately, Ricketts wrote, the Prado's Raphael collection was too limited to form an opinion about the painter. 

In his other art historical monograph, Titian (1910), Ricketts compared Titian to Raphael:

If the unique quality in the art of Raphael might be described as an unfailing sense of rhythm, the rhythmic sense, though great in Titian, is crossed by a greater hold upon realities which he marshals into a rhythmic whole, without Raphael's tendency to transmute them into the terms of his own convention.

(p. 171) 

In his art historical writings, Ricketts focused on Raphael's paintings, but for the Vasari Society – and this was perhaps one of the appealing aspects of the undertaking – he was able to examine the painter's drawings. 

Raphael was the artist about whom he wrote the most pieces for The Vasari Society; incidentally, this series of articles only began with the Second Series in 1920. However, Ricketts's first contribution was about a drawing he ascribed to Raphael, while a footnote referred to Oskar Fischel who was of the opinion that the drawing was by Perugino. The MET, where the drawing is now kept, is a little less certain and has ascribed the drawing to the 'Workshop of Perugino' (see the MET's website).

In 1922, Ricketts devoted some paragraphs to Raphael's drawing 'Cartoon for Madonna and Child' from the collection of the British Museum.

Raphael, Drawing, cartoon (the Virgin and child)
[British Museum, London:
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

Ricketts's contribution was signed 'C.R.':

In the National Gallery the unfinished Madonna, bequeathed by Miss Makintosh, commonly called the Madonna of the Tower (from the Orléans, Hope, and Rogers Collections), has been generally accepted as a Raphael, and the relation between this and the magnificent cartoon in the British Museum is manifest; in this last the rough indication of the general design is a sketch, but the treatment of the heads is intense and almost Leonardesque and full of a sense of entranced and ardent life. Unlike most of Raphael's Madonnas, the hair is not parted on the forehead, but thrown back and held by a band, as it is in the St. Catherine in the Madonna di San Sisto and in the Galatea in the Farnesina Fresco: despite this detail, and owing to surviving influences of Leonardo and even Fra Bartolomeo, the present writer would date the cartoon about 1512; there are points of similarity between the type of the Virgin and some of the Muses in the background of the Parnassus.

The British Museum now dates the drawing to 1509-1511.

In Part IV of the Second Series Ricketts very briefly discussed Raphael's 'Portrait of Himself as a Boy' (from the collection of The Ashmolean Museum):

Despite the age of the artist this exquisite drawing must be classed with the early studies made for the Coronation of the Virgin. Even under the influence of Perugino Raphael as a draughtsman was himself from the first. Here he is possessed of that tender vision and delicately tempered power which has given him his place in art.

The Ashmolean nowadays describes the drawing as 'Portrait of an unknown youth, possibly a self-portrait'.

Two more drawings from The Ashmolean were given short comments, and of one of these Ricketts wrote:

To men of Raphael's range and gift this exquisite drawing counted but as a step in the creation of yet finer things.

Ricketts not only examined every detail in a drawing, but also studied the object as a historical relic: what had happened to it since the master's hand had left it untouched? An example is his entry in Part V of the Second Series about a drawing in the collection of Windsor Castle: 'Christ Giving the Keys to Peter' (now known as 'Christ's Charge to Peter'):

Raphael, 'Christ's Charge to Peter'
[Royal Collection Trust]

The deviations in this design from the tapestry cartoon at Kensington (for which it is a study) are too conspicuous for comment, notably in the action of the Saviour, who has been drawn from some model or apprentice of Raphael's, stripped to the shirt, whilst other figures retain entirely or in part their every-day clothes. The composition is not only in reverse but is shaded from left to right; this last characteristic proves that the Windsor page - fine and vivid as it is - is not the actual original but a singularly sharp off-set from a drawing by the master, of which the study for Christ in the Louvre, identical in every stroke of the chalk, is all that is left. The Louvre fragment has been, in part, cut out and mended in the left foot and in the left sleeve. The Windsor version therefore preserves in its entirety (but in reverse) the original design which at some time has been cut up, in all probability, by some dealer.

The website of the Royal Collection Trust explains the procedure of the off-set:

The offset was made by laying a blank, slightly dampened sheet of paper over the original chalk drawing and rubbing the two, producing a reversed impression. Such offsets could be used to monitor the final effect of a composition when the end product reversed the artist’s design, as with tapestries (which are woven from the back) and prints. The present offset may have been made by Raphael for this purpose, for all his studies for the Sistine cycle are in the direction of the cartoons and not of the tapestries, but this is the only surviving example of an offset made in connection with the Sistine tapestries; other extant offsets made in Raphael's studio have no relevance to the creative process and were probably made only as records.

In Part VII of the Second Series, Ricketts devoted five lines to another study by Raphael, which contains in a great measure a 'perfect balance between his gifts of explicit draughtsmanship and enveloping charm'.

All of Ricketts's writings about Raphael show that he regarded him as one of the truly great masters of the Renaissance.

722. Charles Ricketts and The Vasari Society (6)

Charles Ricketts would write twice about Leonardo da Vinci for The Vasari Society, having previously discussed his work in his two books The Prado and Its Masterpieces and Titian. However, in these monographs, Leonardo's name is only mentioned in passing, in comparison to other painters such as Titian:

In the painting of the eyes and flesh of the little faun in the 'Bacchus and Ariadne,' the glazes have been softened with the finger tips - this softening process was also practised by Leonardo.

(Titian, 1910, p. 166)

For Part III of the Second Series (1922) of The Vasari Society Ricketts wrote three comments on sketches by Leonardo da Vinci for the 'Madonna del Gatto', two studies of the Virgin and Christ Child with a cat in the collection of the British Museum and one in the collection of Arthur Hungerford Pollen.

Leonardo da Vinci, sketches for 'The Madonna of the Cat'
At the top: Recto; Below: verso
[Collection British Museum]

The first two were on the recto and verso of one leaf, both pen and wash drawings. The Vasari series first depicts the drawing of the verso (No. 3) and then the recto (No. 4). Ricketts wrote:

In the year 1478 Leonardo began two pictures of the Virgin Mary. One of these has been identified with the Madonna del Fiore, preserved in a damaged condition in Petrograd; the second, the 'Madonna del Gatto', has been lost. Closely allied studies for both pictures are preserved in London, Paris, Florence, and in the Bonnat Collection. The two sketches, here reproduced, No. 4 [recto], with the indication of a window in the background, is so close in conception to the 'Madonna del Fiore' that it may be considered as a study in the evolution of both these early pictures alike. In the drawing No. 3 [verso], which is in part traced through, Leonardo is striving to break with the formality of design of the Petrograd picture, and the simple interrelation of the mother and child of the Madonna del Fiore is replaced by greater movement and a more complex and rhythmic sense of line and mass.

Leonardo da Vinci, 'Madonna with Child and Cat'
[private collection]
[See Wikipedia]

Ricketts wrote about the third sketch, which was then in a private collection in London and is now in New York:

This study bearing on the 'Madonna del Gatto' is more Leonardesque in workmanship and invention than the two already described. All traces of the Verrocchio atelier have vanished; in some respects it is even more mature than the Louvre design for the Adoration of the Magi. The girlish head, the bosom still placed high, would help, however, to class this drawing not later than the early 'eighties'.  In may show the final pose chosen for the Madonna del Gatto; it may also be a somewhat later improvisation on the same theme which we shall find taken up again, later still, in the Louvre sketch for the cartoon of the Virgin and St. Anne, where the cat is replaced by a lamb. 

Such was his admiration for Leonardo that he attributed a drawing in his and Shannon's possession not to the master, but to Lorenzo di Credi, even though Shannon was certain that it must be a work by Leonardo. In 1914, on the basis of new photographs, he changed his mind, saying: 'So Shannon is right and I was wrong'. Later, however, the drawing was attributed, perhaps more cautiously, to Andrea del Verrocchio, and nowadays it is considered to be the work of Fra Bartolomeo. So Shannon was also wrong. [See Fitzwilliam Museum].

A fictionalised Leonardo

Ricketts's story 'The Two Peaches' was published in Unrecorded Histories. Thomas Sturge Moore added a dedication to Charles Shannon. The book was published posthumously in 1933. This story revolves around a fictionalised Leonardo da Vinci. We will never know how Ricketts imagined Leonardo, because this is one of two (out of eight) stories in the book that lack an illustration.

In the first paragraph of the story, Ricketts expresses his admiration for the 'Messere' Leonardo da Vinci, who is called 'this incomparable man', and whose painting skills are 'without a rival'. In the second paragraph, Ricketts combines his art historical observations (see the above quotation from Titian on the use of the artist's fingertips) with his sensitive imagination about the painter's work during the Renaissance.

Shortly after dawn, for no one knew when Leonardo chose to wake or sleep, he was examining a picture of Our Lady, St. John and an Angel adoring the Holy Child in a landscape of rocks, on which he had lavished his utmost skill, even softening the texture of the flesh with his finger-tips to imitate the grain of the skin; portions of the design were still unfinished, the completion of a task tempered the fire of his imagination, causing him to abandon many things that were well begun.

(p. 59)

This last observation seems to be based in part on Ricketts's own experience, who was extremely uncertain about his talent as a painter, but this also had historical roots, because Da Vinci's clients demanded side panels, which the artist preferred to leave to local painters.

The painting in question - 'The Virgin on the Rocks' - was well known to Ricketts, as it had been acquired by the National Gallery in London in 1880.

Leonardo da Vinci, 'The Virgin of the Rocks',
oil on wood, about 1491/2 and 1506/8
[Collection National Gallery, London]
[Creative Commons agreement]

Ricketts's view of art as an autonomous domain is, as the reader quickly realises, also the view of Leonardo da Vinci:

'Art should be divorced from any consideration but itself,' thought the Master as he covered his work and the offending panels with a cloth to protect them from the dust.

(p. 60)

The story seems to have been written partly to describe the disorderly wealth of a painter's and inventor's studio and secluded garden in listings of various objects. In the sequel, Ricketts describes Da Vinci's experiments with poisoned crocus and peaches, introducing the other inhabitants of the studio: the painter of the panels, the cat, a monkey and his housekeeper. Leonardo dismisses the local painter before receiving a visit from a court lady, a mistress of the Duke, who has to hide between the artefacts in the studio as the latter suddenly appears. While the others, one by one, talk about the uses of poison, Leonardo makes sure they leave the crocus and peaches alone. The Duke likens lovers to artists:

'Do you sometimes tire of your picture as I tire of my women?'

Leonardo smiled rather sadly before saying, 'The desire for artistic perfection is arduous, O Prince; we lovers and artists alike grope for a light hidden from our human darkness... and ... sometimes I feel I am painting on the Night.'

(p. 65)

Incidentally, the Duke needs a gift for the French king, and Da Vinci helps him with this. After the Duke has departed, his mistress turns out to have disappeared as well, while the cat is lying 'among dusty bones'. Leonardo puts away his notebook and the crocus, but cannot find the peach anywhere. It then transpires that his dismissed assistant has given a better pupil a peach, who is now dying. Leonardo rushes to his bedside and hears that he is on the mend, but that Lucrezia, the Duke's wife, has suddenly died. Back in his studio, he wants to gather up all the peaches, but hears that his housekeeper has given the last fruits to his monkey. Fortunately, he sees that the monkey is alive and well in his cage, with the pits of two peaches next to him.

Before the poisonings take place and, apparently thanks to the presence of the painting of 'The Virgin on the Rocks', the cat and monkey are saved from death, Da Vinci works through the night, paying little attention to food or other distractions, occasionally muttering a piece of Ricketts wisdom, such as:

Things mortal pass away, but not art.

(p. 67)

In addition to a high ideal when it comes to art, with a certain disdain for worldly matters - which, incidentally, are elegantly resolved by the painter in a businesslike manner - the story expresses a deep love for animals, more so than for people.