Wednesday, October 7, 2026

792. The Hand Mirror by Charles Shannon

Charles Shannon is primarily known as a wood-engraver, draughtsman, lithographer and painter, and there is no doubt that wood-engraving, pencil, oil paint and lithography were the media with which he achieved his finest results, but very occasionally he experimented with other techniques.

Shortly after his death, P. & D. Colnaghi & Co in London organised a retrospective exhibition of his prints, Exhibition of the Lithographs of the Late Charles Shannon, R.A., which ran from 20 January to 3 February 1938. The catalogue lists 103 lithographs, twelve chiaroscura woodcuts and two drypoints.

The catalogue does not specify the year of creation for any of the lithographs or woodcuts and the two drypoint etchings are also undated. They were on loan from James Howard Bliss (1894-1977) and his elder brother Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss (1891-1975).

Number 107 is 'Portrait of Charles Ricketts' (See for this print blog 436. Charles Ricketts Drawn by Charles Shannon).

Charles Shannon, 'The Hand-Mirror' (drypoint)
British Museum, Number: 1949,0411.450
[© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a 

No. 108 in the catalogue is a genre piece of the morning toilet, called 'The Hand Mirror'. First owned by the Bliss brothers, it was later acquired by Campbell Dodgson who bequeathed it to the British Museum. The museum's website gives a description:

Woman, whole-length in profile to left with head lowered, sitting at a dressing-table with another woman standing behind her and arranging her hair while holding a hand mirror before her. After 1896
Drypoint on thin cream paper

Its dimensions are: height: 152 millimetres and width: 127 millimetres.

The date is not given. It is assumed that the etching was produced later than the closely related lithograph of the same title. This transfer lithograph (190 x 155 mm) was printed in a small edition of eight copies.

Charles Shannon, 'The Hand-Mirror' (lithograph, 1896)
British Museum, Number: 1899,0321.8
[© The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a 


In his catalogue of the lithographs of Shannon, Charles Ricketts dates the print to 1896 and he noted: 'This is a transfer  lithograph privately printed as a gift'. He does not mention the existence of the drypoint.

It is actually difficult to say which print was produced first. The portrait of Ricketts is also challenging to date, but I feel it can not be dated to the late 1890s.

Paul Delaney, in his biography of Ricketts, states that Shannon's first attempts at lithography date from 1888, and, what is more, that he came to explore this medium after he had ventured into etching: 'After briefly trying his hand at etching he had taken up lithography [...].' (Charles Ricketts, A Biography, 1990, p. 48). This would mean that the drypoint was done almost a decade before the lithograph with the same title.
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