759. Apollo and Marsyas

In a musical contest between Apollo and Marsyas, it was the latter who lost and was subsequently flayed alive by Apollo. Such mythological stories have often been depicted by artists, and this story is usually, but not always, illustrated with the scene in which Marsyas is tortured, as in a drawing by Luca Giordano.

Luca Giordano (attributed to) 
'Apollo slaying Marsyas'
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1923

For their illustrations, Ricketts and Shannon choose another moment, Apollo and Marsyas playing their instruments. Shannon made two different drawings that were pasted into an album (now at the British Museum). They look like magazine illustrations, possibly head- or tailpieces, and must have been done early in his career.

Charles Shannon, 'Apollo, Marsyas' (undated drawing)
[British Museum: 1946,0209.50]
[© The Trustees of the British Museum.
Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence]

The first pen drawing (5,7 x 16,o cm) is described as follows: 'Apollo and Marsyas; a faun on right playing pipes, a seated male figure on left holding a harp, surrounded by decorative foliage'. The second one (6,0 x 16,4 cm) depicts 'a faun on right playing pipes, a seated male figure on left holding a violin, surrounded by decorative foliage'. The names 'Apollo' and 'Marsyas' are part of the drawing.

Charles Shannon, 'Apollo, Marsyas' (undated drawing)
[British Museum: 1946,0209.51]
[© The Trustees of the British Museum.
Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence]

Ricketts, like Shannon, depicted the musicians (not the winner and loser). The image came up for auction in the John Russell Taylor sale at Olympia Auctions on 11 February. 

Charles Ricketts, 'Apollo and Marsyas' (undated)

It was described as: 'signed, titled and dedicated Apollo and Marsyas / Charles Ricketts / A Madame Mascabesi upper left; signed Charles Ricketts lower centre on the edge of the mount; lithograph with watercolour additions; 28 x 20cm'.

The dedication is consistent with the subject of the image, music. The name 'Mascabesi' is wrong, the musical friend who was given this sheet was Blanche Marchesi (1863-1940), a mezzo-soprano. From 1905 onwards, Ricketts went to her recitals and met her several times; one of his letters to her has survived (to be published in the forthcoming edition of the complete letters). Though described as a lithograph, this is obviously a watercolour or an original drawing, heightened in watercolour. Ricketts's monogram 'CR' is in the lower right hand corner. The name underneath the image is probably not from his hand, but the dedication at the top certainly is.