730. Drawings for Unrecorded Histories (5)

The sheet containing the five sketches for the illustrations in Unrecorded Histories (British Museum collection) does not include one for the story ‘The Pavilion of the Winds’ about Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. 

The fifth and final sketch is for another story, 'The Last Guest', which takes place in the house of Lepidus, a friend of Caesar. As in the previous story ('A Morning in Spring'), Caesar's imminent death plays a role, in this case he appears at the house of his friend, the evening before he is murdered. 

This - the approaching, inevitable death - was clearly a subject that fascinated Ricketts. He often painted figures shortly before or after the ultimate moment: Montezuma, Christ, Cleopatra, Don Juan and others, time and time again.

The basic premise of this story is Ricketts' idea that historians have placed too much emphasis on Caesar as a military leader and politician and have forgotten 'the art and beauty-loving Caesar who wrote epigrams and plays'.

Charles Ricketts, 'The Last Guest'

The uncultured host has gathered a motley company of businessmen, orators and poets, some of whom are of Greek origin, such as Agathon. A separate table is set for Caesar so that he can continue his work as a statesman during the meal and the discussions (dictating a letter, listening to a messenger). However, though the meal is progressing, Caesar has not yet arrived.

Agathon talks about the effect of thunder on the growth of truffles, which are said to be half animal and half plant. Many of the guests eagerly speculate on this topic. The doctor in the company responds soberly:

Be the truffle animal or vegetable, I think that storms, by their torrential rain, merely uncover their hiding place without need of intervention from the thunderbolts of Zeus.

The doctor seems to be the voice of Ricketts, who speaks about ageing:

[...] age calms the force of our passions, even the passion of love; how much more does it affect our power to hate! which experience of life commonly softens. [...] I even hold that old enemies may sometimes be preferable to new friends.

Ricketts, who in his youth had declared many artists and critics his enemies, later realised that these 'frenemies' were perhaps closer to him than others.

During the conversation about friendship and love - ('Let a youth acquire knowledge of the pleasures of the bed from a young boy slave, this saves him from the snares of venal harlots [...]'), - Caesar quietly enters.

Charles Ricketts, sketch for Unrecorded Histories
[Collection British Museum: 1946,0209.122]
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]
[© With permission of the executors of the Charles Ricketts estate,
Leonie Sturge-Moore and the heirs of Charmain O'Neil]

The illustration shows his arrival, or, perhaps his later departure.

The Emperor paused to hear; then, with a salutation of the hand towards his host and fellow guests, he sank upon his couch and chose some simple food from the onyx table before him.

The physician wondered, 'how long would Caesar have to live', because of his 'transparent hands' and his thinning hair. However, his eyes 'had a fixed inner light like the glance of a hawk'.

The discussion continues about the soul, and the physician says that the soul is part of the body and cannot live on its own. Meanwhile, Caesar silently responds to several messages, including one from his wife, who is worried because of the late hour and a prophetic dream about the Ides of March.

The lateness of the hour, and something disquieting in the behaviour of the Emperor had affected the guests [...]

No wonder, because some of the guests were in on the plot to kill him.

After the physician repeats his opinion - 'To me the Soul can never be immortal, it dies with the brain' - the discussion turns to death.

Suddenly Caesar stands up and as he leaves, his host asks him what he thinks is the best way to die. His words end the story:

The Swiftest, the most unforeseen!

729. Drawings for Unrecorded Histories (4)

The second story in Unrecorded Histories (1933) is called 'A Morning in Spring' and takes place on the day Caesar was assassinated in 42 BC. According to Ricketts's fancy, Cleopatra, who had been living in Rome for two years in the palace of the autocrat, had bought a small villa near the capital, where she secretly returned after Caesar had sent her back to Egypt. Here she would receive her new lover, Marc Antony.

Cleopatra, despite her veneer of Greek culture, had a profound belief in magic, fostered by her old nurse Tui, and Amenothes was almost the ruler of the queen's household.

He, her 'Egyptian soothsayer', used coloured sands and small idols to predict the future, and the signs were obscure: 'Absence and departure'. The absence turned out to be Julius Caesar's who was murdered that morning. The departure was Cleopatra's who subsequently escaped to Egypt. Thus, her absence from Rome was also predicted by Amenothes.

Marc Antony had sent a letter because he was delayed. Cleopatra feared that the 'absence' meant he would not arrive at all.

Charles Ricketts, 'A Morning in Spring'

They were not yet lovers, apparently. While she reclined on a silver couch, she mused about his body:

What would the naked Antony look like? Well enough, for he had kept his body in athletic condition.

Presently, he arrived:

Cleopatra did not listen to his explanations. She merely noted the small beads of sweat upon his full brow, crowned with a matted pelt of auburn hair, his superb neck and his physical splendour which the loose-fitting tunic did not conceal.

The servants withdrew and Marc Antony 'mounted the silver couch'.

With delicate laughter his mistress unfastened  the fibulae of his tunic [...] the lovers embraced and became united.

They did not take heed of a young black servant, 'cup in hand filled with wine-drenched snow'.

The illustration shows the silver couch and Cleopatra, the servant holding the cup, and the naked Marc Antony who 'began to put on his tunic' after a debate about the question who of them would follow or not follow the other. Ricketts's illustration confuses the moments of the attendance by the servant and Antony who was getting dressed. Unless, of course Ricketts meant to illustrate the fact that the servant stood by while their lovemaking was in progress and their discussion endured. However, the gesture seems to be that of a servant presenting a drink, not of someone who has been standing there for an hour waiting.

Finally, the message of Caesar's murder arrived, and Antony looked on as Cleopatra was brought to safety by her servants.

Already his mistress was being carried to the garden threshold, when she stretched out her lovely arms and cried:

'Farewell, farewell for ever!...

Forget Cleopatra.'

Of course, in reality they were reunited, and Cleopatra would bear him three children.

Charles Ricketts,  sketch for Unrecorded Histories
[Collection British Museum: 1946,0209.122]
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]
[© With permission of the executors of the Charles Ricketts estate,
Leonie Sturge-Moore and the heirs of Charmain O'Neil]

The original drawing for the illustration is rather messy, and the servant seems not to hold anything, or turn his head to the left. Ricketts's portrait of the servant is rather stereotypical for a black man, while his portraits of Marc Antony - his face is invisible - and Cleopatra - her famous nose is not depicted - are more general in character.

728. Drawings for Unrecorded Histories (3)

The only surviving moving images of Charles Ricketts show him quickly closing his mouth when he laughed to prevent the viewer from seeing his bad teeth. It is precisely with such a scene that the story of Joséphine de Beauharnais and Napoleon begins in Unrecorded Histories. Joséphine, after eating some sweets (intended for her guests), uses a different trick:

Madame de Beauharnais smiled often and well, it was one of her many attractions, but she smiled with a graceful downward movement of the head to conceal this blemish.

The story, called 'The Sword', is set in the circular boudoir in Joséphine's house in around 1795, just before Napoleon would propose marriage to her (in Unrecorded Histories, her name is consistently spelled without an acute accent). Ricketts describes her hairstyle and dress and the room in which she and her daughter wait for visitors. The furniture belongs to the reign of Louis XVI,

[...] it had been given a touch of fashion by the addition of jonquil-coloured curtains and a long swan-headed couch, on which Madame de Beauharnais reclined toying with the sweets on a gilded tripod by her side.

Charles Ricketts, 'The Sword'

Ricketts's illustration shows the swan-headed bench, but the tripod is out of view. The curtains are suggested by semi-circles that hang down from the ceiling.

In several stories in this posthumous collection, Ricketts openly introduces homosexual characters (whereas he used to be very secretive about sex). In this story, one of the guests enters with 'a youth of extraordinary beauty', who 'passed as his nephew, some said his son, others his latest favourite'. 

His beige-coloured tights and myrtle-green coat moulded every line of his body, and from his prim-rose coloured waistcoat hung a collection of chains, watches and seals. Yes, Achilles was beautiful, thought Josephine, who adored beauty [...]

After greeting the hostess, Achilles 'leant languidly against a mirror, where he looked like Narcissus tired of his own reflection. [The book contains the spelling error ‘liked’ instead of ‘like.’] 

In the illustration, Achilles is the figure on the right. The two figures on the left are a rich manufacturer, Lucien Tillleux, who kisses her hand, and 'a rich profiteer', Népomucène Théoleyre, who holds 'a dwarf myrtle plant in a Sèvres pot'. A striking difference between the sketch and the illustration is the raised hand holding the flower pot, which does not appear in the sketch.

The conversation about the uncertain political situation – in which France seemed to be developing a need for a sword – reminds the hostess of her uncertain times after the Revolution, when she was imprisoned and her first husband was guillotined. This goes completely over Achilles' head, who acts like 'all beautiful young animals', and seems to have become infatuated with Joséphine's daughter. Meanwhile, one of the other visitors, Théoleyre, is fascinated by Achilles' beauty, which makes his patron La Chèze uneasy.

Charles Ricketts,  sketch for Unrecorded Histories
[Collection British Museum: 1946,0209.122]
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]
[© With permission of the executors of the Charles Ricketts estate,
Leonie Sturge-Moore and the heirs of Charmain O'Neil]

The conversation focuses on the incompetence of the state's leaders, including the promoted general, who, as soon as his qualities are questioned, is announced by the manservant, and thus Napoleon enters the story in the final lines - the future emperor and husband  of Joséphine.

There is not much action in the stories in this collection; most of them consist of conversation and the exchange of ideas; the scenes Ricketts drew are therefore static. Here, he selected the moment when two guests enter and a third stands aside, grouped around the hostess. It is also interesting that Ricketts never seems to depict the most famous characters, such as Nero (in 'The New God') or, here, Napoleon.

727. Drawings for Unrecorded Histories (2)

Some illustrations in Unrecorded Histories are pure silhouette drawings, but the first drawing in the book - see last week's blog - contains elements that are not just positive or negative shapes, with areas that appear to be drawn in, such as the balcony, and the window shutters. The illustration accompanying the story 'The New God' likewise contains such elements, especially on the wall, where decorative areas have been drawn, and on the floor, where the contours of a carpet or of marble stones have been sketched.

Charles Ricketts, 'The New God'

At the beginning of the story, Seneca retreats to a small office in Nero's palace, a cool room where the sound of a water organ can be heard. The murals from the time of Tiberius 'represented the Loves of Venus' - one such scene is visible at the upper-hand side. Seneca is seated in the centre, having sunk 'wearily into a chair'.

In the small sketch Ricketts made in 1930, the scene on the wall is difficult to identify; the final illustration shows Venus and Adonis - Cupid hovers in the air to their left.

Charles Ricketts,  sketch for Unrecorded Histories
[Collection British Museum: 1946,0209.122]
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]
[© With permission of the executors of the Charles Ricketts estate,
Leonie Sturge-Moore and the heirs of Charmain O'Neil]

The figure pointing upwards (to the left of Seneca) is a prisoner: 'Some call him Saul, others name him Paul.' Paul tells him about his master, Jesus, but Seneca cannot quite follow him. He thinks 'that Paul had no new message; his was the worship of some obscure dual deity, and one of those Asiatic cults that were countless.' Seneca is baffled by the idea of 'One True God':

Nature, Life gave no hint of any guiding purpose. Each separate part seemed at war with each. Nature, like Nero, sometimes disguised her cruelty with beauty.

Nero enters, moist with sweat after a ball game.

The apostle remained silent, he beheld before him the terrible master of the World, the beast of Rome, the vessel of all known abominations who, at that moment, was proffering his naked buttocks to be powdered by his slaves.

Nero - who is charmed by Paul's phrase 'Circumcision of the Spirit' - decides to read one his poems:

I will read you the passage where Venus entreats Adonis, as yet unknowing of his coming death.

Venus tries to persuade 'the reluctant Youth' to take action: 

when grief has blinded and removed from sight

the vision of that limb, whose gentle use

the goddess craved and sought in vain to stir,

between those marble thighs; which cruel fate

will dash with purple drawn from lovely veins

that knew not yet the ardent pulse of Love.

Finally, Nero asks Paul which Goddess 'your Christ' resisted.

Interestingly, Ricketts does not show the meeting between the apostle and Nero in the presence of Seneca, but only the weary, pensive Seneca listening to the stubborn apostle.

726. Drawings for Unrecorded Histories (1)

Several sketches have been preserved for the cover of the short story collection Unrecorded Histories (which would be published two years after Charles Ricketts had died), but of the six illustrations, only rudimentary sketches remain—and not even for all of them. The one on page 106 with an elephant, a servant with a fan and a naked female figure has no preliminary study that we know of. [See the remaining sketches in the collection of the British Museum].

Charles Ricketts, sheet with several sketches for book covers and illustrations
[Collection British Museum: 1946,0209.122]
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]
[© With permission of the executors of the Charles Ricketts estate,
Leonie Sturge-Moore and the heirs of Charmain O'Neil]

The five sketches – the final drawings appear to have been lost – are on a sheet with other sketches for book covers, one of which must be much older: a sketch (left row, second from top) is for the collected works of W.B. Yeats, which were published from 1922 onwards. From a letter to the poet Gordon Bottomley, we know that Ricketts worked on the illustrations for his stories in December 1930:

I have also designed silhouette illustrations to 5 short tales or dialogues by J P Raymond, which I hope to engrave & publish later. 

(Letter from Charles Ricketts to Gordon Bottomley, 26 December 1930: BL Add MS 88957/1/76, f 132)

The five sketches (a sixth appears to have been erased) are approximately 7 cm in height, while the book illustrations, including the frames, measure 15 cm. Ricketts's original scheme for making wood-engravings differs greatly from the final silhouette drawings printed in terracotta.

Charles Ricketts, two sketches for Unrecorded Histories
[Collection British Museum: 1946,0209.122]
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]
[© With permission of the executors of the Charles Ricketts estate,
Leonie Sturge-Moore and the heirs of Charmain O'Neil]

The two drawings at the top right are sketches for the illustrations on page 44 (left) and page 10 (right). The latter is the first illustration in the book accompanying the story “The Transit of the Gods”. The first story takes place in Rome in the late 1920s, where Greek gods gather in a private room at Bar Gréco (the Antico Caffè Greco): Hermes and Apollo arrive first, followed by Aphrodite and Zeus. Given the stifling atmosphere, they move to the café's small courtyard where they sit among orange trees in boxes and 'an unhappy palm', which figures in the illustration.

Charles Ricketts, 'The Transit of the Gods'

Aphrodite is standing to the left of the tree, Zeus on the right behind a smoking Apollo and Hermes, who is perched on a small table and also holds a cigarette. After the café closes, Hermes leaves them, and they retire to Apollo's house where his help Hyacinthus announces the unexpected arrival of 'a Jewish deity'. However, his name is not Christ or God, but  Mephistopheles:

I will not detain you on my share in the creation of the world; to a rudimentary vegetation I have added choicer flowers, richer fruit. I invented pleasure instead of lust, the arts instead of morals; but these are details.

His proposal entails that monotheism must come to an end - 'these are the days of adventure and change'. Like Beyond the Threshold, this story gives Ricketts the opportunity to reflect on love, art, beauty and the times in which he lived.