tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31316596393261513752024-03-18T04:03:53.182+01:00Charles Ricketts & Charles ShannonUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger659125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-64712661605891462922024-03-13T00:30:00.515+01:002024-03-15T00:00:01.546+01:00658. Charles Ricketts about Frans Hals<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In letters, in his diary and in his book <i>The Prado</i>, Charles Ricketts mentioned the name of the Dutch painter Frans Hals several times. Fifty key works by Hals are now on show at the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam. (<a href="https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/whats-on/exhibitions/frans-hals/?_gl=1%2ad2hyx6%2a_up%2aMQ..%2a_ga%2aMTExMzExOTM0NS4xNzEwMDA3OTM5%2a_ga_12345%2aMTcxMDAwNzkzOC4xLjAuMTcxMDAwNzkzOC4wLjAuMA..%2a_ga_CS3DSQ64VQ%2aMTcxMDAwNzkzOS4xLjAuMTcxMDAwNzkzOS4wLjAuMA.." target="_blank">Read more about the exhibition here</a>.) Time to take stock of Ricketts's views on Hals.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-mIWUANkpAcxQHyID4SwEBb4O_OEFdTshydRDq5yCGrVnTfRHDhRxx6hTldBvhkqwa2sMHqrLOaVR2hOMs15Hp0DLny5DN6aF7wAO7q5eFWzERh83LKg7ASP6ePPEvIo8X2pLnIWWD9TIAkOELrNMrZahjbrawrFPTAG1p18AWebGEwzlbEUVunNs1AY/s1266/FransHalspainting%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1266" data-original-width="1000" height="439" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-mIWUANkpAcxQHyID4SwEBb4O_OEFdTshydRDq5yCGrVnTfRHDhRxx6hTldBvhkqwa2sMHqrLOaVR2hOMs15Hp0DLny5DN6aF7wAO7q5eFWzERh83LKg7ASP6ePPEvIo8X2pLnIWWD9TIAkOELrNMrZahjbrawrFPTAG1p18AWebGEwzlbEUVunNs1AY/w347-h439/FransHalspainting%20-%201.jpeg" width="347" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Frans Hals, 'Portrait of a Man' (<i>c</i>.1634)<br />[Mauritshuis, The Hague]</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Between 1901 and 1930, the name occasionally comes up in Ricketts's work.</span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;">On a visit to Paris in 1901, tired by the noise of cars, horses, people, horns and bells, both Ricketts and Shannon needed some time to let the paintings in the Louvre speak to them. Six hours a day they wandered around there, looking for their favourite works, but Titian and Leonarda da Vinci were hiding from their eyes, and:<br /><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">for some days painters whose qualities are utterly exterior charmed, or rather interested us most, i.e. Veronese and Hals, both unusually excellent in the Louvre.</span><br />(Diary, 6 June 1901; see also <i>Self-Portrait</i>, 1939, p. 58).</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The following three comments are from his 1903 book <i>The Prado</i>. In a review of Velasquez's 'The Spinners', Ricketts says that this work was created in fits and starts over a long period of time, eventually making it look completely different from what the painter initially envisaged:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">This is possible, for Velasquez was not in temper or in art a spontaneous painter, and let it be said that those other men of facile execution and vision (like Frans Hals, for instance) are really 'improvisers' contenting themselves with what comes to hand. Their facility is of the wrist, not of the intellect: theirs is more a memory of the fingers than of the brain.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(<i>The Prado</i>, 1903, p. 85)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a review of Titian's work, he mentions Hals again - only now he spells his first name as if it were German, with a z:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">No artist, however objective, is able to eliminate his personality from his portraits - be he Franz Hals, who swaggers, or Goya, who is nervous, irritable, and unbalanced.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(<i>The Prado</i>, 1903, p. 140)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Another comparison with Veronese's work was made by Ricketts in a paragraph about Titian's 'facility of holding the spectator [...] by a more gradual process of appeal underlying the fine outer aspect of the work':</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Some painters we have no occasion to look at more than once, for their work repeats one thing only; this is true of most pictures by Veronese and Franz Hals; their works fail to hold more than one impression. This is not due to their summary and emphatic workmanship alone; their minds were of the same pattern.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(</span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Prado</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, 1903, p. 144)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ricketts missed a degree of depth in Hals's work that he did find in the paintings of the artist he admired most (and about whom he wrote a separate book), Titian.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwcdU7I-C0aQEMFI-mO4zZ1hmJhNkFegpWR_Bnh8xxFoEKPosAGGQyaC-3djRu4WNCF9zQitK-YmBnULGrvmD-_qih_wpuizyVkJThyphenhyphenlEQ4F0qdVbwUIeYdN5Vjbav6iAZikq73mck3TEbDyAdQex22LnzDx0bDbcGddR6rGu27A5E_4uhRynRM2B4RDg/s1359/FransHalspaintingLiechtenstein%20-%201%20(1).jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1359" data-original-width="1000" height="449" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwcdU7I-C0aQEMFI-mO4zZ1hmJhNkFegpWR_Bnh8xxFoEKPosAGGQyaC-3djRu4WNCF9zQitK-YmBnULGrvmD-_qih_wpuizyVkJThyphenhyphenlEQ4F0qdVbwUIeYdN5Vjbav6iAZikq73mck3TEbDyAdQex22LnzDx0bDbcGddR6rGu27A5E_4uhRynRM2B4RDg/w330-h449/FransHalspaintingLiechtenstein%20-%201%20(1).jpeg" width="330" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Frans Hals, 'Portrait of a Man' (c.1650-52)<br />Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">In August 1903, Ricketts made an art trip on his own. In Vienna, he visited the Liechtenstein family's private museum (a 'sunny Rococo' palace 'with a garden entrance') where he admired a portrait by Frans Hals from c.1650-52. It hung in a room full of masterpieces:<br /><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">In one room hung with 21 pictures there are 11 fine Van Dyck portraits, the magnificent full length Hals, and 2 sketches by Rubens.</span><br />(Letter to Charles Shannon, 27 August 1903: BL Add MS 58085, f. 30)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In February 1912, Ricketts and Shannon travelled to the Netherlands and saw some Hals paintings:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">We liked what we saw of Holland, that is, The Hague and Amsterdam, the country was invisible owing to fog. At Haarlem we saw nothing save the Frans Hals pictures, the town was invisible, merely <u>white mist</u>. </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">[...]</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">I was enchanted with Ver Meer and one has to go to Holland to see Frans Hals. I hear with consternation that they intend cleaning his Haarlem pictures; that would be a national disaster as many of the pictures in Holland have been overcleaned. It would be more, – it would be a world-disaster!</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN-GB">(Letter to Richard Roland Holst, mid to late February 1912:</span> Typed transcription, BL Add MS 61715, f. 137-8)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In November 1916, he mentioned the importance of the Haarlem collection to D.S. MacCall.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;">During the Summer of 1921, Léonce Bénédite, the director of the Luxembourg Museum in Paris, came to stay at Chilham Castle. He was 'full of anecdotes about Degas, Rodin, Puvis, their relatives and scandals', Ricketts said and in a letter he concluded:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Have you noticed that realistic artists seem always a little inferior as men, – Hals, Courbet, and Monet?</span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: georgia;">(Letter to Richard Roland Holst, Summer 1921:</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Typed transcription, BL Add MS 61719, ff. 100-2)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1924, Ricketts discussed Hals's position with painter/critic Jacques-Émile Blanche:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d;">Your estimate of Frans Hals is true only if you compare him to the greatest masters. I demur over the value you set on his last works. Fromentin has analysed this question (in relation to Manet) in a way that I consider final.</span></span><br />(Letter to Jacques-Émile Blanche, Christmas 1924: Bibliothèque de l'Institut de France: MS 7055, f. 7)</span><br /><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">About the later work of Frans Hals, Blanche had written:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Hals, except in the paintings of his old age (Haarlem Museum), enveloped in an atmosphere of poetry and mystery, was a simple master of the brush; his drawing was that of a calligrapher, with a lively, witty style and a fairly restrained realism.</span></div><div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><i>Hals, si ce n'est dans les toiles de sa vieillesse (musée de Haarlem) envelopées d'une atmosphère de poésie et de mystère, fut un simple maître de la brosse; son dessin avait été celui d'un calligraphe, de style alerte, spirituel, d'un reealisme assez court.</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(Jacques-Émile Blanche, <i>Manet. </i>Paris: F. Rieder & Cie, éditeurs, 1924, p. 40)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ricketts, apparently, did not agree with the 'poetry and mystery' qualification.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next time Ricketts mentioned the painter Hals was in a letter to Eric Brown, director of the National Gallery in Ontario, who was then in London to purchase paintings. Ricketts was his adviser. A Hals was for sale at Agnew's and Ricketts wrote:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">I do not care hugely for the Franz Hals it is a powerful pot boiler done late in his earlier manner i.e. it was intended to show he was still valid &, I think, vulgar. </span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(Letter to Eric Brown, 17 May 1925: National Gallery of Canada)</span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbNmoCTs9DHo0QVHqQ0mLIdOU00hp6FuoMogPVn-B0LoHnx6vN5AwNViYPvhEOV8roHe-1-54Bnp-gNT7vB-dGVmjSOqN-Bm3L0eaoTR9qjiJCM6sWI08Sig91Fc08fxKQHvYq1xStnoW_jrSAO9GbrhMyhw9aytQ8qJnxhptJFqJUd9QQKqYg8B1qMRI/s731/VanHornemansion%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="537" data-original-width="731" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbNmoCTs9DHo0QVHqQ0mLIdOU00hp6FuoMogPVn-B0LoHnx6vN5AwNViYPvhEOV8roHe-1-54Bnp-gNT7vB-dGVmjSOqN-Bm3L0eaoTR9qjiJCM6sWI08Sig91Fc08fxKQHvYq1xStnoW_jrSAO9GbrhMyhw9aytQ8qJnxhptJFqJUd9QQKqYg8B1qMRI/w421-h309/VanHornemansion%20-%201.jpeg" width="421" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">The Van Horne mansion in Montreal, c.1890<br />[Collection of the McCord Stewart Museum]</span></blockquote></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1927, Ricketts travelled to the museum in Ontario and to other places in Canada and the USA. In Montreal, he was shown the private collection of Sir William Van Horne (who had died in 1915). To Shannon he wrote about the Dutch paintings:</span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">He has 4 good Rembrandts, 3 Franz Hals good & unusual.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB">(Letter to Charles Shannon, 23 October 1927: </span></span>BL Add MS 58085, f. 89)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Two days later, in a letter to Mary Davis, he wrote that there were four Frans Hals paintings.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Van Horn possessed a 'Portrait of a Dutch Gentleman', a 'Portrait of a Dutch Lady', both dated 1637 (current owner: The Phoebus Foundation, Antwerp), and the 'Portrait of Samuel Ampzing', c.1630 (current owner: the Leiden Collection of T.S. and D.R. Kaplan). He also had a portrait called 'The Jolly Toper' (attributed to Frans Hals). These were all hanging in the Reception Room (cf. Mary Eggermont-Molenaar, <i>The William Van Horne Collection. A Dutch Treat</i>. 2015, p. 402).</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">During the same trip, in Toronto, Ricketts visited the house of Frank Porter Wood, who owned two Frans Hals paintings:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">His two Frans Hals are superb, one latish you dont know – head & shoulders</span><br />(Letter to Charles Shannon, 1-2 November 1927: BL Add MS 58085, f. 102)<br /><br />These paintings were later bequeathed to the </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto: </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">'Portrait of Isaak Abrahamsz. Massa' (1626) and 'Portrait of Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne' (<i>c</i>.1655).</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The same month, in New York, Ricketts visited the Metropolitan Museum, where:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">The Veronese Mars & Venus hangs between two marvellous F Hals.</span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(Letter to Charles Shannon, 13 November 1927: BL Add MS 58085, f. 111)</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The museum owns eleven Hals paintings. Later, in the Frick Collection, he admired another Frans Hals, 'Portrait of a Man', <i>c</i>.1660:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">the Spencer Hals, man with cuffs</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(Letter to Charles Shannon, 18 November 1927: BL Add MS 58085, f. 113)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The name of Spencer refers to the former owner, Frederick, 4th Earl Spencer.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit60W87qbe0uHqhXdW8DpOSoM1nmq2OoFpccXONoAVyGXjUu6CL1tO6AkJLDJpiBRPrSzmDkk9pojcGizD4HcxmvamPJrEOu_jePlwQXALnThKKeM3VCnbxwJ2OQFNdEts_iyWicEtroSgDGZaiw7IrXnuz6XH6xhNzouDCMkIo_zUs-CahbsViOqFoMU/s1111/FransHalsFrick%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1111" data-original-width="817" height="437" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit60W87qbe0uHqhXdW8DpOSoM1nmq2OoFpccXONoAVyGXjUu6CL1tO6AkJLDJpiBRPrSzmDkk9pojcGizD4HcxmvamPJrEOu_jePlwQXALnThKKeM3VCnbxwJ2OQFNdEts_iyWicEtroSgDGZaiw7IrXnuz6XH6xhNzouDCMkIo_zUs-CahbsViOqFoMU/w321-h437/FransHalsFrick%20-%201.jpeg" width="321" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="text-align: start;">Frans Hals, 'Portrait of a Man', </span><i style="text-align: start;">c</i><span style="text-align: start;">.1660<br />[The Frick Collection, New York]</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, he expressed the qualities of Frans Hals in general (we don't know which painting he saw):</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">very good Hals – he is always good</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(Letter to Charles Shannon, 23 November 1927: BL Add MS 58085, f. 116)</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Summarizing his view of the Canadian and American collections, he wrote:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Frans Hals is represented in perfection. – I am now speaking of private collections</span><br />(Letter to Richard Roland Holst, 7 December 1927: Typed transcription, BL Add MS 61720, ff. 151-5)</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">He repeated his remark about the richness of these private collections in a letter to Marie Sturge Moore, comparing the houses he visited with Shannon's and his own Townshend House:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">The quality of the private treasure is unimaginable, in houses very inferior in type to Townshend House you will find famous Rembrandts, Titians & Franz Hals, & some of the best Goyas & Grecos are there, the Rembrandts being unimaginable.</span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(Letter to Marie Sturge Moore, 8 December 1927: BL Add MS 58086, ff. 171-2)</span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Finally, on a journey to Germany, he mentioned Hals in a letter to Francis Ernest Jackson after visiting the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, were he probably saw the portrait of Willem Croes, 1660-62. This painting (</span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">47,1 x 34,4 cm)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> was acquired in 1906:</span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">An admirable small Franz Hals</span></span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(Letter Francis Ernest Jackson, 10 April 1930: Oregon University Library)</span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Whereas Ricketts was initially hesitant about the art of Frans Hals and detested his later work, over the years, as he became acquainted with the painter's masterpieces, he forgave him those more superficial paintings and even concluded that his work was 'always good'.</span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(<i>John Aplin provided all transcriptions of letters and diary notes</i>.)</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-290374049559446252024-03-06T00:30:00.336+01:002024-03-08T16:52:12.248+01:00657. Vale Press Collectors: Beda and Waldemar Zachrisson<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Last week I wrote that no Vale Press books could be found in Scandinavian libraries, but that was not quite true. While there are no complete collections, a single collecting couple has donated </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">eight books published by the firm of Hacon & Ricketts</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> to the University Library of Gothenburg (Göteborg). </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">These eight books bear the bookplate of Waldemar and Beda Zachrisson.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvaQMdusgsx533oTunMday6gTWLRpF90FinJYz9TwOtMhuwD2CCbaD1mObXTOuI-PyAZGryibuv7Ln8R1qjY76PhuIya7KLQoIGKh596YxnrfvWzbTyrbQSLsW_WqO3Yr0hNYMpvqsPzgwk8bWhIk8bHaMQaE-WbSSmqUFW6oGZJTtSU8yAjDNua_NlwU/s1274/Zachrisson_bookplate%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1274" data-original-width="908" height="467" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvaQMdusgsx533oTunMday6gTWLRpF90FinJYz9TwOtMhuwD2CCbaD1mObXTOuI-PyAZGryibuv7Ln8R1qjY76PhuIya7KLQoIGKh596YxnrfvWzbTyrbQSLsW_WqO3Yr0hNYMpvqsPzgwk8bWhIk8bHaMQaE-WbSSmqUFW6oGZJTtSU8yAjDNua_NlwU/w333-h467/Zachrisson_bookplate%20-%201.jpeg" width="333" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Bookplate of Wald & Beda Zachrisson</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Wald or Peter Anders Waldemar Zachrisson (1861-1924) chose the printing trade and during several years was apprenticed to or worked for printers in Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, Hamburg and St Petersburg. Influenced by the ideas of William Morris, Zachrisson set out to reform Swedish typography, (co)founding the Swedish Typographic Association in 1893, founding a printing museum and a printing school and publishing a typography yearbook, <i>Boktryckeri-Kalender </i>(1892-1921).</span><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjva6q-nmLYAmk7AB2faea4UgWWVJ6DdZczkjF5e7ThISPHUQltiDkrMjZjcaUAs1CSgTUZHGBKV5cFAyXjZFo73c90dHDnmB8EcuytoYaD4zIUra_GS49lfnnCLqULdvPl0M6b_LkW-u7xYlzQY4ZlCbQRxF8dpH_DA94cd7xBQQ4mtdIZXtuS2C4wAQ/s1431/Zachrisson_kalender%20-%203.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1431" data-original-width="1000" height="469" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjva6q-nmLYAmk7AB2faea4UgWWVJ6DdZczkjF5e7ThISPHUQltiDkrMjZjcaUAs1CSgTUZHGBKV5cFAyXjZFo73c90dHDnmB8EcuytoYaD4zIUra_GS49lfnnCLqULdvPl0M6b_LkW-u7xYlzQY4ZlCbQRxF8dpH_DA94cd7xBQQ4mtdIZXtuS2C4wAQ/w328-h469/Zachrisson_kalender%20-%203.jpeg" width="328" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Boktryckeri-Kalender 1902-1903</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">The yearbook showed pictures of the modern equipment available in his own print shop, some of which could apparently be operated by the youngest clerk. In 1908, he employed 200 people, including lithographers and bookbinders.</span><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwtqWzS7Z1w81N4L1NGXkMeRV8MWjIqr_G5vUQ4XtwXH8yuCtl6LqLxsWOc9zAtMHRo24Q7ynIZuF9yK4iLP1R8mdLAZuYfIa_VA96ZhL9cBhLSNqdazVh8cHnrG2Ib4jC0Juo2QEQ6LVGPXMR6N6QyQBq_I2wEM36S1LcZILy11AG5-8xve0_XK5gWMc/s1344/Zachrisson_kalender%20-%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1344" data-original-width="906" height="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwtqWzS7Z1w81N4L1NGXkMeRV8MWjIqr_G5vUQ4XtwXH8yuCtl6LqLxsWOc9zAtMHRo24Q7ynIZuF9yK4iLP1R8mdLAZuYfIa_VA96ZhL9cBhLSNqdazVh8cHnrG2Ib4jC0Juo2QEQ6LVGPXMR6N6QyQBq_I2wEM36S1LcZILy11AG5-8xve0_XK5gWMc/w332-h492/Zachrisson_kalender%20-%202.jpeg" width="332" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Advertisement in <i>Boktryckeri-Kalender 1902-1903</i></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">His wife, Beda Zachrisson (born Carlberg in 1867), outlived him by more than 20 years, and died in 1944. Not all their books ended up in Gothenburg University Library. For example, Sotheby's once sold an incunabulum, <i>Historia romana </i>(Venice: Erhard Ratdolt, Bernhard Maler and Peter Löslein, 1477), part 2 of which had the couple's bookplate.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The collection in Gothenburg is a carefully chosen selection of books that illustrated the example of the Printing Revival from the time of William Morris. The collection of 99 volumes includes editions from the Kelmscott Press, Doves Press, Ashendene Press, Eragny Press, Vale Press and other presses from 1890 to 1920. [Read more about <a href="http://www2.ub.gu.se/samlingar/waldemar-zachrissons-trycksamling/" target="_blank">Waldemar Zachrisson prints collection</a> and about <a href="https://marginalia.blogg.gu.se/2022/12/" target="_blank">the contents of the collection</a>.]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">There are twenty books printed at the Kelmscott Press (including <i>A Note by William Morris on his Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press</i>) [Gothenburg also owns a copy of the Chaucer edition], five books from the Doves Press (including <i>The Ideal book or Book Beautiful</i>) and eight from the Vale Press. </span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Zachrisson owned copies of the following Vale Press books:<br /><br />Milton's <i>Early Poems </i>(1896), </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pissaro's and Ricketts's <i>De la typographie et de l'harmonie de la page imprimée; William Morris et son influence sur les arts et métiers</i> (1898), </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rossetti's <i>The Blessed Damozel </i>(1898), </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">William Blake's <i>Poetical Sketches</i> (1899), </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ricketts's <i>A Defence of the Revival of Printing</i> (1899), </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam</i> (1901), </span></div><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><i>Ecclesiastes; or, The preacher, and the Song of Solomon </i>(1902)</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">and </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Marlowe's <i>Doctor Faustus</i> (1903). </span><div><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is impossible to say what drove Zachrisson to select these eight titles, other than that he wanted to collect some examples of the Vale Press. It seems he tried to buy at least the theoretical texts about printing from most of the private presses (in this case, only the bibliography with Ricketts's important introduction is missing). He was clearly not concerned with English literary texts or Ricketts's illustrations.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In an article in his own yearbook, Zachrisson wrote a paragraph about the Vale Press (see for a digital copy <a href="https://archive.org/details/boktryckeri-kalender-1902-03zachrisson/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank">Internet Archive</a>):</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Next to the Kelmscott books, I would like to put in time sequence, if not in rank, the works from 'The Vale press', a printing house of half private character, founded in 1887 by the artists Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon. One of the Vale books was featured in the <i>Boktryckerikalendern 1898-99</i>, namely 'The Revival of Printing'. However, as the Vale books are particularly distinguished for their wood-engravings and are otherwise interesting, we reproduce here two of them, one of them is <i>Poetical Sketches</i> by William Blake, printed in Vale type with woodcuts by Charles Ricketts by the Ballantyne Press and the other is <i>Les Ballades de Maistre Francois Villon</i>. The latter book, published in 226 copies, is provided with woodcuts, initials and borders drawn and cut by Lucien and Ester Pissaro and printed in Vale type by the Eragny Press, an affiliate of the Vale press. </span>(Wald. Zachrisson, ‘Tankar om bokutstyrsel, III’, in: <i>Boktryckeri-Kalender 1902-1903. </i>Göteborg: Zachrisson, 1903, p. 105-[129].)</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2BgRpxdyIhXQ7UEwgLiIsmVLSOIqDe-iAmN3ZW0y_SfZY2S1Ou4KbSkiEpY4B23ersTYVbW-YdJ1mekHWHAJOG1AS1A38bAhJVP9trIjmmS8uigS318E13jA5YGqz-XK4V-a8pg1eqViG1A6Or-W9ORqz0mZ4FD4PnUyL9AW1oAWblgGw5r9nVuHhY3Y/s1400/Zachrisson_kalender%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="1000" height="497" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2BgRpxdyIhXQ7UEwgLiIsmVLSOIqDe-iAmN3ZW0y_SfZY2S1Ou4KbSkiEpY4B23ersTYVbW-YdJ1mekHWHAJOG1AS1A38bAhJVP9trIjmmS8uigS318E13jA5YGqz-XK4V-a8pg1eqViG1A6Or-W9ORqz0mZ4FD4PnUyL9AW1oAWblgGw5r9nVuHhY3Y/w356-h497/Zachrisson_kalender%20-%201.jpeg" width="356" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Images of a Vale Press and an Eragny Press book<br />in <i style="text-align: left;">Boktryckeri-Kalender 1902-1903</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Earlier, in the 1898-99 edition of his yearbook, Zachrisson had published images of the Vale Press edition of <i>A Defence of the Revival of Printing</i> (probably his own copy) and of the pre-Vale edition of <i>Hero and Leander </i>(1894), but it is not clear whether he owned a copy of this book. This edition of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Boktryckeri-Kalender </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">opened with an illustrated article about William Morris and the Kelmscott Press.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">[<i>Thanks are due to Marja Smolenaars, who sent me a link to Libris, the Swedish catalogue, and to Stefan </i></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Benjaminsson, Humanistiska biblioteket, Göteborgs universitetsbibliotek, for answering a query</i>.]</span></p></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-63763436674564461012024-02-28T00:30:00.110+01:002024-02-28T00:30:00.139+01:00656. Where Are All These Copies Now?<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The edition of the Vale Press publications varied between 150 and 320 copies. So at most 150 complete collections may exist, but many public collections contain only a few volumes, although some are more complete or even exhaustive.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Where did copies of an arbitrary Vale Press book end up, for example, <i>Poems</i> <i>of Alfred Lord Tennyson</i> - alternative title on the spine and in the colophon: <i>Lyric Poems</i>. The book was published in 1900. This is certainly not one of the most desirable volumes of Ricketts's publications - the volume is not illustrated with wood-engravings and - even in 1900 - there were so many other editions of Tennyson's work for sale. The same goes for its companion volume <i>In Memoriam</i>.</span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzZHtpAjMkDh-zKxKu72PPvdImDY3f7hPZylbY0oFezt9XmEaUieLwSys2vBcTRW_iDppvtrnmzWwc9cYMPWAQ_GgBzUPpvlvRjqQ_y-E0oo47fTQMsncLzdPhcCrdY7gBug-o3-AmTEyUoeQbomA6ueii_omze2kTd0xjw-Vhzv2aNlZXdlmQYD6WNrY/s1156/Tennyson_Lyric%20Poems%20-%202.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1156" data-original-width="1000" height="469" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzZHtpAjMkDh-zKxKu72PPvdImDY3f7hPZylbY0oFezt9XmEaUieLwSys2vBcTRW_iDppvtrnmzWwc9cYMPWAQ_GgBzUPpvlvRjqQ_y-E0oo47fTQMsncLzdPhcCrdY7gBug-o3-AmTEyUoeQbomA6ueii_omze2kTd0xjw-Vhzv2aNlZXdlmQYD6WNrY/w406-h469/Tennyson_Lyric%20Poems%20-%202.jpeg" width="406" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><i>Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson</i>, decoration by Charles Ricketts<br />(Vale Press, 1900) </span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Distribution of the edition has been largely limited to the English-speaking world. Many copies of </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Poems</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">of Alfred Lord Tennyson</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> remained in the country of production, which is little wonder: there are thirteen copies on paper and (at least) one on vellum in British libraries and museums.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">However, most copies of this edition are in the United States where, based on online catalogues, as many as twenty-five copies can be counted. In addition, three copies are in Australian libraries and only one copy is kept in Irish libraries, which is also true of Canadian libraries.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Perhaps there are also copies in Asian, African or South American libraries, but I have not been able to ascertain that. Nor does the European continent abound in Vale Press editions. I have only found two copies of this edition in Dutch institutional collections, where there is a copy on paper (Leiden University Library) and a copy on vellum (National Library The Hague).</span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUPa8Adf5muIu9V96jCOT8bOPzHAOxosJjjmz7qnftv-8sbgZyd8V3YfmaNKHLXsE2IH7EzF7OxpV3nBVRSaWbBQqyWsRw7NcuDM_Vn6IQha7O8SPHRrrYrd_QMidComgDXZWGGtfNcuoqiiJPmVhm5aHLHr0M95nVeT0pmuk088Z7S5zVodIEYOSg0FI/s1520/Tennyson_Lyric%20Poems%20-%201.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1520" data-original-width="1000" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUPa8Adf5muIu9V96jCOT8bOPzHAOxosJjjmz7qnftv-8sbgZyd8V3YfmaNKHLXsE2IH7EzF7OxpV3nBVRSaWbBQqyWsRw7NcuDM_Vn6IQha7O8SPHRrrYrd_QMidComgDXZWGGtfNcuoqiiJPmVhm5aHLHr0M95nVeT0pmuk088Z7S5zVodIEYOSg0FI/w335-h508/Tennyson_Lyric%20Poems%20-%201.jpeg" width="335" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Prospectus for the Vale Press Tennyson edition (1900)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In all, only 46 copies of the edition of 320 copies have now been located</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">There are Vale Press books in German, Belgian and French libraries (not <i>this</i> edition), but I have not yet discovered them in northern European libraries (Scandinavia) or southern European countries (Italy, Spain). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Apparently, they were collected only in countries where the Private Press movement exerted some influence around 1900.</span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgARkvrSmJvL4UiZ7QlfyhyWn171nbNGCRIJiy-No8NMTdM3uXSstkI1LozwDkbcQ3uIts2cnwY_yysmq19uw7GqZoJbT_98kWJkHuJlUTFHIRGWs9jh3332KeVk1ehs3lDBqIaZeqIbBAd40aE3vemH8BNwJ2sbc-TjTFDgct5cE2f_AmkBEAKjCtSrCg/s1000/Tennyson_Lyric%20Poems%20-%203.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgARkvrSmJvL4UiZ7QlfyhyWn171nbNGCRIJiy-No8NMTdM3uXSstkI1LozwDkbcQ3uIts2cnwY_yysmq19uw7GqZoJbT_98kWJkHuJlUTFHIRGWs9jh3332KeVk1ehs3lDBqIaZeqIbBAd40aE3vemH8BNwJ2sbc-TjTFDgct5cE2f_AmkBEAKjCtSrCg/w430-h323/Tennyson_Lyric%20Poems%20-%203.jpeg" width="430" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><i>Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson</i>, initial by Charles Ricketts<br />(Vale Press, 1900) </span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is impossible to get a complete picture of the copies on private bookshelves</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">. However, we can see where copies are for sale.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Four copies are currently offered online by antiquarian bookshops in Seattle (USA), Adelaide (Australia), Zurich (Switzerland) and Glasgow (Great Britain). </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-24639729426674595862024-02-21T00:30:00.080+01:002024-02-23T16:32:32.048+01:00655. The Programme for T.S. Moore's Aphrodite Against Artemis (1906)<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ricketts's yellow was the prevailing colour of the first performance of the Literary Stage Society - a group including Thomas Sturge Moore, Laurence Binyon, William Pye, R.C. Trevelyan, Ricketts & Shannon, Gwendolyn Bishop and Florence Farr. The play was by T.S. Moore, <i>Aphrodite Against Artemis</i>, and Ricketts was the designer.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">'The scenery and costumes', according to the programme, 'have been carried out after designs by Mr. C.S. Ricketts as closely as circumstances permitted.' Sounds like a warning.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">There were weak parts in the play, there was some 'atrocious acting', and the day after, a highly critical review offended the author.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Images of the rare programme, like the <i>Salome </i>programme in last week's blog, were kindly provided by Steven Halliwell.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0f0WVcy2kEzyhfx5mgN7EarM2Tsx_8kFSpubWqrHFdccHseZwEHm4DkFKtv0meM9Egj-sQ2d6yRPq2aGRQYkbRc9DwfvJ1dvtZNvw0XY5bylMWIaPPKIyoghz9K0MnDVoW3DiAzvXOXkSvmbExmKQQq04fGugvK0WnuQP3WBDxsKg7QLngjaMnpIjDBM/s2001/Moore_Aphrodite_programme1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2001" data-original-width="1331" height="518" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0f0WVcy2kEzyhfx5mgN7EarM2Tsx_8kFSpubWqrHFdccHseZwEHm4DkFKtv0meM9Egj-sQ2d6yRPq2aGRQYkbRc9DwfvJ1dvtZNvw0XY5bylMWIaPPKIyoghz9K0MnDVoW3DiAzvXOXkSvmbExmKQQq04fGugvK0WnuQP3WBDxsKg7QLngjaMnpIjDBM/w345-h518/Moore_Aphrodite_programme1.jpg" width="345" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju0dZsevZZPAUhbbWZHfW3WX7jMu6awm8YZp8qzF0bG12gyYd0VcNRTy1i8PSKDIDpPo2KocvW-lW2ZZ89xDIHjaoh_kO8-eg1EDLK9aC1POjkxQEMdP8u0_MjdoABTB7O2CLEO39YXc8cIpRsqUeJG3p-MkLZKhOvzTmnwZZbK6XWeNQC28Blbw2c3R8/s2000/Moore_Aphrodite_programme2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1336" height="538" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju0dZsevZZPAUhbbWZHfW3WX7jMu6awm8YZp8qzF0bG12gyYd0VcNRTy1i8PSKDIDpPo2KocvW-lW2ZZ89xDIHjaoh_kO8-eg1EDLK9aC1POjkxQEMdP8u0_MjdoABTB7O2CLEO39YXc8cIpRsqUeJG3p-MkLZKhOvzTmnwZZbK6XWeNQC28Blbw2c3R8/w360-h538/Moore_Aphrodite_programme2.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW5eHYka-mfDIp69opSyeNCLsCs65ssaqYP_DnYUnHMfKFSMT02vZBaMthfPwMR44tXJkLDQNmIoHHp0-z95DaAv8o614fjp6d9JS6sC2hcIDQiAIrwvSHNqmPuAyJIT_vhD967R1bQeS_Te6t2uSZH0OdaZ88yPs-UObtR1T0HaFmuHT0vMFvxeJwp_E/s2000/Moore_Aphrodite_programme3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1389" height="511" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW5eHYka-mfDIp69opSyeNCLsCs65ssaqYP_DnYUnHMfKFSMT02vZBaMthfPwMR44tXJkLDQNmIoHHp0-z95DaAv8o614fjp6d9JS6sC2hcIDQiAIrwvSHNqmPuAyJIT_vhD967R1bQeS_Te6t2uSZH0OdaZ88yPs-UObtR1T0HaFmuHT0vMFvxeJwp_E/w355-h511/Moore_Aphrodite_programme3.jpg" width="355" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6qUJzwPvUkLpqa-NY3AVIUpdz616O1adwDyKOD-puwFGqcawLXquAE7YVuXlf7tPD46WmDgwwY064SLthtgaXrFyz2VR44vbR8do-xw4BSvpti09apxNZsiWs1Eo5ILrp0YvEe9XTtFuFowtoppDJ7QHsZkayMKj48aDwxS4TxUrn39Hyso5-J1UNta4/s2000/Moore_Aphrodite_programme4.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1384" height="511" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6qUJzwPvUkLpqa-NY3AVIUpdz616O1adwDyKOD-puwFGqcawLXquAE7YVuXlf7tPD46WmDgwwY064SLthtgaXrFyz2VR44vbR8do-xw4BSvpti09apxNZsiWs1Eo5ILrp0YvEe9XTtFuFowtoppDJ7QHsZkayMKj48aDwxS4TxUrn39Hyso5-J1UNta4/w353-h511/Moore_Aphrodite_programme4.jpg" width="353" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Programme for T.S. Moore's <i>Aphrodite Against Artemis</i> (1906)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> </span><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-48177931662401200662024-02-14T00:30:00.042+01:002024-02-15T18:07:48.357+01:00654. The Programme for Wilde's Salome (1906)<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">On 10 June 1906, a first performance of Oscar Wilde's play <i>Salome</i> took place at the King's Hall in London. The omens were not positive: some actresses refused to play the role, Wilde's name was still linked to scandal, funders were shy, costumes went missing, and newspapers returned their tickets for the first performance and refused to publish photos. But the audience - including W.B. Yeats, Thomas Hardy, G.B. Shaw, Max Beerbohm, Eleanore Duse - responded enthusiastically, and Ricketts's stage designs 'surpassed belief'.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipAg-D3B9VuWxeAX6rSs40PtetWQE4KCsDYivcX-flFEpjfAk7GIgDSYeL6MaOE5ZzdRNr_n445M0TeLcdrQ5MeOhysi2Qq5UZmUOxjzeD20Q2wCsFqsefkThK_P2fvrDcpH_c4sIb6Vp0ptzREhgkcVNSW6RVYK55BZAOCBts7OdoN_GcSLsRJNgNomU/s1000/Salome1906_stage%20design%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="590" data-original-width="1000" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipAg-D3B9VuWxeAX6rSs40PtetWQE4KCsDYivcX-flFEpjfAk7GIgDSYeL6MaOE5ZzdRNr_n445M0TeLcdrQ5MeOhysi2Qq5UZmUOxjzeD20Q2wCsFqsefkThK_P2fvrDcpH_c4sIb6Vp0ptzREhgkcVNSW6RVYK55BZAOCBts7OdoN_GcSLsRJNgNomU/w476-h281/Salome1906_stage%20design%20-%201.jpeg" width="476" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Ricketts, stage design for <i>Salome</i> (1906)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Few copies of the printed programme have survived, as is often the case with ephemeral publications of this type. It is therefore with pleasure that we can publish the programme here in full. Collector Steven Halliwell provided the images below. Page 2 is blank - only pages 1 and 3-4 contain text.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQhngAkTCHH_srfDQuvX8OwKehecnY7cgxO_54JGAuX00TN2MxovuF82nX5RTnZUsiOiEcJNanHUZdiaTrwV721hyczI-L5s-OEOAQY7BSwxRROngP1HzM_6kgwDb28Dbgnu9JQg9snCc6iiR6TuB6koLYjeUXsBFIvk3tHiuXtMrbBrzE0TTFfX9ngQg/s2000/Salome_programme1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1445" height="511" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQhngAkTCHH_srfDQuvX8OwKehecnY7cgxO_54JGAuX00TN2MxovuF82nX5RTnZUsiOiEcJNanHUZdiaTrwV721hyczI-L5s-OEOAQY7BSwxRROngP1HzM_6kgwDb28Dbgnu9JQg9snCc6iiR6TuB6koLYjeUXsBFIvk3tHiuXtMrbBrzE0TTFfX9ngQg/w369-h511/Salome_programme1.jpg" width="369" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYErijbrIXJpNq6gEN0IUlXUKOfFYLsDB2S5qCOr9qxS3j6nxhhkc_fZdYyAoZ1F8dwQIFmdvvXafG2-QmHfhzjpobvnQ-PnXR0VsuMWQLlVMCudP5ob-Zds9ZYH2EKzRcJz6geQ4dj3hjxQ_4vvonywNVZmxxGlsfILGhqGi5Q1h1ho6LGBYupuSXETY/s2000/Salome_programme3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1500" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYErijbrIXJpNq6gEN0IUlXUKOfFYLsDB2S5qCOr9qxS3j6nxhhkc_fZdYyAoZ1F8dwQIFmdvvXafG2-QmHfhzjpobvnQ-PnXR0VsuMWQLlVMCudP5ob-Zds9ZYH2EKzRcJz6geQ4dj3hjxQ_4vvonywNVZmxxGlsfILGhqGi5Q1h1ho6LGBYupuSXETY/w359-h478/Salome_programme3.jpg" width="359" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfbwp0q58SMjfWWZVbimS7eiqWdxWobzkLXSLtmA698WmGLedeTn1-aN2MoXf5jBzRISEC0zorgkT_zX7gRJ4r3wS2cCxGprCs3eVMwj_p1V9XZ6Lu-QDDTWyx9FAYaV9hryJkN2TPZQfI5YAlrgXi9jTmJPZQ-IW3-Is6AXwxIcEZDfFNEhTZEnIkNwA/s2000/Salome_programme4.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1366" height="519" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfbwp0q58SMjfWWZVbimS7eiqWdxWobzkLXSLtmA698WmGLedeTn1-aN2MoXf5jBzRISEC0zorgkT_zX7gRJ4r3wS2cCxGprCs3eVMwj_p1V9XZ6Lu-QDDTWyx9FAYaV9hryJkN2TPZQfI5YAlrgXi9jTmJPZQ-IW3-Is6AXwxIcEZDfFNEhTZEnIkNwA/w355-h519/Salome_programme4.jpg" width="355" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Programme for <i>Salome</i> and <i>A Florentine Tragedy</i>, London, 10 June 1906</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>(<i>With thanks to Steven Halliwell.</i>)</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-40671136436091541552024-02-07T00:30:00.176+01:002024-02-07T01:07:05.915+01:00653. Charles Shannon's Design of Pan Surrounded by Nymphs <p><span style="font-family: georgia;">One of Ricketts's and Shannon's most comprehensive projects in the early 1890s was an illustrated edition of the classic story of Daphnis and Chloe. Shannon had found an early English translation which they thought was much better than Amyot's French version and they decided to illustrate the story with wood-engravings and publish it themselves. However, halfway through - almost a year was needed just to cut the thirty-seven engravings - they agreed with Elkin Mathews and John Lane that The Bodley Head would distribute the book. </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZjuipnakjUMiDQxC_eJhBoYRALGwD42ZM3eq5A71k1rjITalXB1qUh3nlZhB0IGuCYf-hownaSLXwdxZk2DvIZtxmf0e_GMexgzbizezEzgqEMkYlqUPex1OD82nqhljwT3FVbd7DFABdMu1DiHSmCSJuo6tpCxWX9LxWCI517V7oPX9ryAaJwMIp6DM/s1000/Daphnis%20and%20Chloe_Page%20107_small%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="831" data-original-width="1000" height="364" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZjuipnakjUMiDQxC_eJhBoYRALGwD42ZM3eq5A71k1rjITalXB1qUh3nlZhB0IGuCYf-hownaSLXwdxZk2DvIZtxmf0e_GMexgzbizezEzgqEMkYlqUPex1OD82nqhljwT3FVbd7DFABdMu1DiHSmCSJuo6tpCxWX9LxWCI517V7oPX9ryAaJwMIp6DM/w438-h364/Daphnis%20and%20Chloe_Page%20107_small%20-%201.jpeg" width="438" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Vignette for the colophon of Daphnis and Chloe (1893):<br />trial proof, signed 'C Ricketts'<br />[British Museum, <span style="background-color: white; text-align: start;">1913,0814.31]<br /></span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: start;">[Creative Commons </span><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-image: linear-gradient(currentcolor, currentcolor); background-position: bottom; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: 100% 2px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; text-decoration-style: solid; transition: background-size 0.3s cubic-bezier(0.55, 0.085, 0.68, 0.53);">Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International</span></a><span style="background-color: white; text-align: start;"> (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The wood-engravings were designed by Ricketts and Shannon, drawn on the wood by Ricketts, and engraved by both. </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Trial proofs of many of the illustrations exist, printed in black but also in ochre, red and reddish brown, and a large proportion of the separate prints were signed by Shannon or Ricketts (on these their signatures never appear together).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Although they had both become accustomed to signing their work - Ricketts's illustrations in magazines or Shannon's lithographs, for example - the wood-engravings in the book were not signed. However, there is remarkably a single exception.</span></p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOT0QC_dSoUUHI592E9Z3tFXKdJD5KGV2ToPbbFOAjLWI0K8XaG3jdeQe4qvBVSnT5FD0s-4CAmLbYl-OF3RsZadeNBec-JMNJcb0N96CwxEa2fF-0sAUl1TgPZmsSXlRSCCUMRfUL38w-JCJUakwO0Owif-tSFx9Nbj_WNVcnTf7rEoyuS6xFqh6E9rM/s1000/Daphnis%20and%20Chloe_Page%2045_small%20-%201.jpeg"><img border="0" data-original-height="875" data-original-width="1000" height="391" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOT0QC_dSoUUHI592E9Z3tFXKdJD5KGV2ToPbbFOAjLWI0K8XaG3jdeQe4qvBVSnT5FD0s-4CAmLbYl-OF3RsZadeNBec-JMNJcb0N96CwxEa2fF-0sAUl1TgPZmsSXlRSCCUMRfUL38w-JCJUakwO0Owif-tSFx9Nbj_WNVcnTf7rEoyuS6xFqh6E9rM/w447-h391/Daphnis%20and%20Chloe_Page%2045_small%20-%201.jpeg" width="447" /></a></div><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small; text-align: start;">Wood-engraving of Pan and nymphs for <i>Daphnis and Chloe</i> (1893)<br />Trial proof, signed 'Charles Shannon'<br />[British Museum, </span><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">1913,0814.17]<br /><span style="background-color: white;">[Creative Commons </span><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-image: linear-gradient(currentcolor, currentcolor); background-position: bottom; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: 100% 2px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; text-decoration-style: solid; transition: background-size 0.3s cubic-bezier(0.55, 0.085, 0.68, 0.53);">Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International</span></a><span style="background-color: white;"> (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]</span></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the book, on page 45, Shannon illustrated a scene in an orchard or wood, depicting Pan surrounded by nymphs. Each of them holds or has an apple. In the lower left hand corner Shannon engraved his initials 'CHS'.</span><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikzBcSL6wbUxgUIVycLu8LynoPrZKcNEYBuqbwZ7hZrqYU9xNpY1DDLzz4uQuYoUiRfcnX6DuYiPwyGPRgiFccW22gLNrQzpKKPFYVVsqK7Fh4eb9zewpE4x4rJcokW1wtFQcYQdBFC4MBPGdC5tJl5j9jGKoPBclwj2WoKW1Dob3M8NmOfgsXuMcLJSU/s460/Daphnis%20and%20Chloe_Page%2045_initials_small%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="161" data-original-width="460" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikzBcSL6wbUxgUIVycLu8LynoPrZKcNEYBuqbwZ7hZrqYU9xNpY1DDLzz4uQuYoUiRfcnX6DuYiPwyGPRgiFccW22gLNrQzpKKPFYVVsqK7Fh4eb9zewpE4x4rJcokW1wtFQcYQdBFC4MBPGdC5tJl5j9jGKoPBclwj2WoKW1Dob3M8NmOfgsXuMcLJSU/w463-h162/Daphnis%20and%20Chloe_Page%2045_initials_small%20-%201.jpeg" width="463" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="text-align: start;">Wood-engraving of Pan and nymphs for <i>Daphnis and Chloe</i> (1893)<br />Trial proof, signed 'Charles Shannon': detail<br />[British Museum, </span><span style="text-align: start;">1913,0814.17]<br /><span style="background-color: white;">[Creative Commons </span><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-image: linear-gradient(currentcolor, currentcolor); background-position: bottom; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: 100% 2px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; text-decoration-style: solid; transition: background-size 0.3s cubic-bezier(0.55, 0.085, 0.68, 0.53);">Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International</span></a><span style="background-color: white;"> (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]</span><br /><br /></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">But why does this wood-engraving bear Shannon's initials? Why were they not omitted as in the other illustrations? This authorship issue removes the uniformity of their collaboration. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why did Shannon want to claim precisely this illustration? We cannot assume that Ricketts disagreed with this representation and that it was therefore left to Shannon. Or is this one of the first blocks to be cut and does their decision to anonymise the illustrations - or rather see them as the work of both artists - date from later?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The initials could somehow have been removed or covered up at a later stage, but this was not done, even though work was done on the block after the trial proof was printed. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdu6JuIJAOx6Hfp49nYo5H3q5MLRz8GMZWOVmW0VCHZt8mb4JxqporYDZK9RmkZHai4IiZPwif_DDM_84j27j2tLg1RmWqyHhxVdlO4RYSD2PI6rY6OHpIu8V3gPWNJVO8kWwW5425-70at5kLM08PM9cSgl6v0emVnisdMsIDq1ccmcv-ljGMEp2ZPis/s519/Daphnis%20and%20Chloe_Page%2045_trial_dress%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="519" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdu6JuIJAOx6Hfp49nYo5H3q5MLRz8GMZWOVmW0VCHZt8mb4JxqporYDZK9RmkZHai4IiZPwif_DDM_84j27j2tLg1RmWqyHhxVdlO4RYSD2PI6rY6OHpIu8V3gPWNJVO8kWwW5425-70at5kLM08PM9cSgl6v0emVnisdMsIDq1ccmcv-ljGMEp2ZPis/w409-h336/Daphnis%20and%20Chloe_Page%2045_trial_dress%20-%201.jpeg" width="409" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small; text-align: start;">Wood-engraving of Pan and nymphs for <i>Daphnis and Chloe</i> (1893)<br />Trial proof, signed 'Charles Shannon': detail<br />[British Museum, </span><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">1913,0814.17]<br /><span style="background-color: white;">[Creative Commons </span><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/" style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-image: linear-gradient(currentcolor, currentcolor); background-position: bottom; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: 100% 2px; box-sizing: border-box; color: black; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; text-decoration-style: solid; transition: background-size 0.3s cubic-bezier(0.55, 0.085, 0.68, 0.53);">Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International</span></a><span style="background-color: white;"> (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]</span></span><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The reclining nymph on the bottom right is wearing a dress with a fold that extends from her waist to the level of her knee in the trial proof. In the book, this black curve has been removed, creating a white space that is in line with the lightness of the other figures </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">in the lower quarter of the image, in contrast to the darkness of the trees in the upper part</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmGp30CdONFgqfYJomPBGUWVnGTeRZ7FI2U7dM_AS7pDyqrLikDlvucqTYT-cfJ2-ftlABMIyEQY1Pj0uWWJweEuzwuupY_Te0Lq6AsGHBnn9fO7omhDX2BGY8fYPcXqRY8m75gphRLu5Y9fVU9t0fNyrj9O6dS7dFew0dQ45Wg5g0c52PupGw91xbzTE/s1435/Daphnis%20and%20Chloe_Page%2045_book_dress%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1222" data-original-width="1435" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmGp30CdONFgqfYJomPBGUWVnGTeRZ7FI2U7dM_AS7pDyqrLikDlvucqTYT-cfJ2-ftlABMIyEQY1Pj0uWWJweEuzwuupY_Te0Lq6AsGHBnn9fO7omhDX2BGY8fYPcXqRY8m75gphRLu5Y9fVU9t0fNyrj9O6dS7dFew0dQ45Wg5g0c52PupGw91xbzTE/w420-h358/Daphnis%20and%20Chloe_Page%2045_book_dress%20-%201.jpeg" width="420" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><span style="text-align: start;">Charles Shannon, wood-engraving of Pan and nymphs <br />in </span><i style="text-align: start;">Daphnis and Chloe</i><span style="text-align: start;"> (1893): </span><span style="text-align: start;">detail</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-58677556548643820062024-01-31T00:30:00.152+01:002024-01-31T11:44:00.564+01:00652. Colour Revolution: Blue<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">An exhibition on colour is on display at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford until 18 February: <i>Colour Revolution. Victorian Art, Fashion & Design</i>. The catalogue features John Addington Symonds's <i>In the Key of Blue and Other Prose Essays </i>(designed by Charles Ricketts) accompanying an essay by Stefano Evangelista on the possible 'queerness' of the colours green, blue and yellow. </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjxpkjizJnnf6HKPowijTtp2JijK7zd6YvzVKgppOT4B2ySGZJxdXNGOiItzhqZdoIVJoyGHOYNodpGph5rTxRKyWpLdLcOOQIAHXIMKVJPeNomL6AMaTqCTCOZryRp1uPwJPOUnTSnhrd8ScPHIh_s51MHoRtZa4dpBNRz_IaTyqtnP0KrY8NSDFV1kM/s1000/B10_Cream%20cloth%20first%20edition%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="1000" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjxpkjizJnnf6HKPowijTtp2JijK7zd6YvzVKgppOT4B2ySGZJxdXNGOiItzhqZdoIVJoyGHOYNodpGph5rTxRKyWpLdLcOOQIAHXIMKVJPeNomL6AMaTqCTCOZryRp1uPwJPOUnTSnhrd8ScPHIh_s51MHoRtZa4dpBNRz_IaTyqtnP0KrY8NSDFV1kM/w397-h274/B10_Cream%20cloth%20first%20edition%20-%201.jpeg" width="397" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Ricketts, cover design for <i>In the Key of Blue and Other Prose Essays</i> (1893):<br />version in cream cloth</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The front cover of a copy in blue cloth illustrates this article that states: 'The first edition included a number of copies bound in blue cloth, now extremely rare, [...]' (page 200). A search in </span><a href="https://www.vialibri.net" style="font-family: georgia;" target="_blank">ViaLibri</a><span style="font-family: georgia;"> immediately produces a number of results: which copies are currently for sale and what does that say about their supposed rarity?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. A copy in full vellum, one of fifty large paper copies (price c. €4500); </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">2. Four copies in cream cloth (prices range from €115 to €285) </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">3. Two rebound copies (priced €90 and €100)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Additionally, there are some copies of which the colour of the cover goes unmentioned, and there are several reprints for sale.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5aUg5Lz1lAGespjMr5pfJazna1GZ9d6vnXF8qlBX0nfRDI4JPSwiWT4t11DEm8ppQ4U3z-vjr7zd5zZVxUwq7Cc43z3zp98RezAKFsHdtn37jWmJW0sG_6bCOeshB53bI3Hskr3s1OoMSkq4GqgJiIXUfP5784vesAeNsQPvb0ok_TKF6mwvhNdSX3WM/s1448/B10_Blue%20cloth%20first%20edition_small%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1448" data-original-width="1000" height="529" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5aUg5Lz1lAGespjMr5pfJazna1GZ9d6vnXF8qlBX0nfRDI4JPSwiWT4t11DEm8ppQ4U3z-vjr7zd5zZVxUwq7Cc43z3zp98RezAKFsHdtn37jWmJW0sG_6bCOeshB53bI3Hskr3s1OoMSkq4GqgJiIXUfP5784vesAeNsQPvb0ok_TKF6mwvhNdSX3WM/w365-h529/B10_Blue%20cloth%20first%20edition_small%20-%201.jpeg" width="365" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Ricketts,<br />cover design for <i>In the Key of Blue and Other Prose Essays</i> (1893):<br />version in blue cloth</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">For now, no copies in blue cloth are for sale. However, i</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">f we consider just what has been on offer over the last quarter of a century - at a time when ordinary copies figure considerably less in catalogues than special ones - we see that the range is rather uniform in numbers. I counted (roughly) seven copies in cream cloth, seven in blue cloth and nine large paper copies in vellum.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Since Symonds's bibliography identifies the blue covers as rare, it is not surprising that antiquarian bookdealers like to sell copies in blue cloth rather than those of the cream version. According to bibliographer P.L. Babington, one of the publishers, Elkin Mathews remembered that Ricketts preferred the cream version to the blue one because the colour blue could lead to jokes about Ricketts's Blue (there was a laundry powder called Reckitt's Blue). But in a 1930 letter, Ricketts contradicted this and stated that it was the booksellers who found the cream version too liable to soiling and therefore preferred to sell the blue ones. He was convinced that the cream version was rare. Interestingly, the second printing was issued in blue cloth and, as yet, no copies in cream of this edition have turned up, while the third edition was issued exclusively in cream cloth.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikxM-afP0wpKWzkno_lVprHYalzk00b0ihvC7TOI-OqqQbQaY9m8oFDbytwwvK4rWrciENZV583xk7mzBWRoy76Vum0iC9pxUCbrsmm0UZhYAiC1brr7IrRW8-bVG0RMNrSVsfTP3kPr8vYeIjqSWVH50wWsQehxY-yDkfXmes0uykwPmw0x0gZUTzi6Q/s1213/B10_Blue%20Ashmolean%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1213" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikxM-afP0wpKWzkno_lVprHYalzk00b0ihvC7TOI-OqqQbQaY9m8oFDbytwwvK4rWrciENZV583xk7mzBWRoy76Vum0iC9pxUCbrsmm0UZhYAiC1brr7IrRW8-bVG0RMNrSVsfTP3kPr8vYeIjqSWVH50wWsQehxY-yDkfXmes0uykwPmw0x0gZUTzi6Q/s320/B10_Blue%20Ashmolean%20-%201.jpeg" width="264" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Colour Revolution, Ashmolean Museum, 2024<br />(case with <i>In the Key of Blue and Other Prose Essays</i>)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The label in the exhibition is confusing. It states that only 150 copies of the edition were bound in blue cloth. As a source for this statement is lacking, I assume this may have been a wild guess by an antiquarian bookseller trying to convince a customer to buy a copy.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-74096512199893124332024-01-24T00:30:00.125+01:002024-01-24T00:30:00.130+01:00651. 100 Years Ago: Three Letters by Ricketts from January 1924 (part 2)<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">[Written by John Aplin]</span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">100 Years Ago: Three Letters by Ricketts from January 1924 (part 2)</span></span></h3><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gordon Bottomley was not alone in having to miss the single London performance of his short play <i>Gruach</i> given at the St Martin’s Theatre on 20 January 1924, for a short period of hospitalisation also prevented Thomas Sturge Moore’s attendance. A day after sending Bottomley his reactions to the staging and acting of <i>Gruach</i>, Ricketts wrote again giving the latest news about Moore’s condition, knowing that Bottomley would be anxious to know.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To Gordon Bottomley, 22 January 1924<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">BL Add MS 88957/1/76, f 84</span></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">The T S Moore operation has turned out excellently. I think he was intimidated by too many visits from friends & perhaps Marie intimidated the Doctors who seem to have been perplexed by the case.</span>(1) <span style="color: #38761d;">The Operator has given Marie a frank and reassuring report that all is now well. (Privately) I rather fancy the operation was unnecessary or else, I should say matters were less grave than they thought. T recovered rapidly and looked singularly serene & dignified in his grey hair & beard, He had obviously been preoccupied & frightened, but is well on in convalescence. I have advised Marie to let him “go slow” for a year.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">I intended to write this earlier but the stress of everyday occurrences made me put it off.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Yours Ever<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">CR<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">PS</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">I have painted a new Don Juan.</span>(2)</span> </p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><div style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i></span></div>Notes:</i><br />(1) Marie Appia was Sturge Moore’s French cousin and wife.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">(2) Perhaps 'Don Juan Challenging the Commander' (c.1924-1928), the work accepted by the Royal Academy of Arts as his Diploma piece upon being admitted as a full RA, or 'Don Juan Witnesses his own Funeral'. The subject of Don Juan/Don Giovanni was one of Ricketts’s favourites, and he turned to it on several other occasions as well.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG83NzlrqDoDK3qgLIlG2wAa-KsYN-cA5ThwmvtnmcQsF_w5ZL5HQ-w1Htx3vpasXgspGl-Ct_rjKV5enPeGSN1QMr4QKab7UhzNB0jfeiXMR28o02FIgG9GuKrpck2HNEgsRZEa3DI_ZDnhFMlV02uJsGhIplcqSSvhO302VQBpu7vxuxX2fOWxE0Hfc/s1162/Don%20Juan_RA%20-%201.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1162" data-original-width="896" height="463" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG83NzlrqDoDK3qgLIlG2wAa-KsYN-cA5ThwmvtnmcQsF_w5ZL5HQ-w1Htx3vpasXgspGl-Ct_rjKV5enPeGSN1QMr4QKab7UhzNB0jfeiXMR28o02FIgG9GuKrpck2HNEgsRZEa3DI_ZDnhFMlV02uJsGhIplcqSSvhO302VQBpu7vxuxX2fOWxE0Hfc/w357-h463/Don%20Juan_RA%20-%201.jpeg" width="357" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Ricketts, 'Don Juan Challenging the Commander'<br />Oil on canvas, 116,8 by 88,9 cm (1924-1928)<br />[Collection: <span style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/don-juan-challenging-the-commander" target="_blank">Royal Academy of Arts</a>]</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was then Moore’s turn to receive a letter, together with the offer of reading matter to distract him during his convalescence. Ricketts included a further description of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Gruach</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> performance for Moore’s benefit [</span><i style="font-family: georgia;">omitted here</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">]. </span></div><div><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1;"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To Thomas Sturge Moore, about 25 January 1924<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">BL Add MS 58086, f 114<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">My Dear Moore<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">We are without another book on German Gothic sculpture. My pet statue is that of a King standing & handless at Rheims, all our books on Gothic art are at Chilham</span>(1)<span style="color: #38761d;"> and several books on old masters, we kept Greece & the Orient here […] our books mount up to about 4,000 do what we can to keep them down.</span>(2) <span style="color: #38761d;">I will send you one or more books on beasts by Collette Willie which I think quite exquisite, her other admirable books (better still) are about worthless or improper persons of a very modern type and probably would not interest you.</span>(3)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRqJoLkQBF0I_4LAzCWNVl1JF2kQjJFRXk_TdGWRsvITLuosvw_7lc5Pf67IE5BKb9NhdCEPSZSpBJK3A7qRlhMIV6FjKa_yXL5OK1t7P1SNOLSPt-y4c8If2LwgJEqP3stwHP7DVM9dWFVoKYq4_ZeqRVgIhI_sdAYPlIf99K7-C17BXpk73oIQ2XZQQ/s1314/Manet%20-%201.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1314" data-original-width="1000" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRqJoLkQBF0I_4LAzCWNVl1JF2kQjJFRXk_TdGWRsvITLuosvw_7lc5Pf67IE5BKb9NhdCEPSZSpBJK3A7qRlhMIV6FjKa_yXL5OK1t7P1SNOLSPt-y4c8If2LwgJEqP3stwHP7DVM9dWFVoKYq4_ZeqRVgIhI_sdAYPlIf99K7-C17BXpk73oIQ2XZQQ/w328-h430/Manet%20-%201.jpeg" width="328" /></a></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnGmnp_4pWbbtK60JTeHoXMffvj5crg6X_ZMUs5lcPja_Vi6cadcqAU3IQOkBuMCEJrARs0FjsBRzK9Frv08NEKZstx4hzDRYrm_s1rGGQkIWoz_Kzu2NTCJHFDn52XzrsH1k3woWEgFX4c3ze1CQw61Pg1wUu7p_qLBYInnr7Rff6Oq_3ZlQhbFCrQF0/s1303/Manet%20-%202.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1303" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnGmnp_4pWbbtK60JTeHoXMffvj5crg6X_ZMUs5lcPja_Vi6cadcqAU3IQOkBuMCEJrARs0FjsBRzK9Frv08NEKZstx4hzDRYrm_s1rGGQkIWoz_Kzu2NTCJHFDn52XzrsH1k3woWEgFX4c3ze1CQw61Pg1wUu7p_qLBYInnr7Rff6Oq_3ZlQhbFCrQF0/w327-h426/Manet%20-%202.jpeg" width="327" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">J.-E. BLanche, <i>Manet </i>(Paris: F. Rieder & Cie., éditeurs, 1924)<br />One of the books from Ricketts's art library,<br />with a handwritten dedication from the author to Ricketts<br />[Private Collection]</span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">I wrote a long letter to Bottomley which he might lend you concerning his play which I thought went very well indeed, despite several shortcomings in the performance, at least, till the exit of Macbeth & Gruach.</span> [….] <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">I am sorry you have this tiresome complication which, I know needs care.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">(4)</span><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"> [George] Clausen was troubled by it in Italy when seemingly in perfect health. Tell Marie she must consider this letter in part for her. I hope she is not overworking herself.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Tonight I am attending, by request, a seance to meet the Spirit of Oscar Wilde. I had some questions put to him of which the answers were not entirely satisfactory. The published seances have been quite extraordinary quite unlike the usual insipid spiritualistic stuff. Yeats says it is an obvious case of the medium having created a second personality, founded on Wilde, within her subconscious self.</span>(5) <span style="color: #38761d;">Some of the vagueness of the answers to my questions & actual mistakes might be ascribed to the lapse of time, change in character and outlook & even intrusion of the medium’s personality, anyway it will be interesting.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Yours Ever<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">C Ricketts</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">Notes:</span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1) Chilham Castle in Kent, owned by Edmund and Mary Davis, where Ricketts and Shannon had the loan of the Keep as a country retreat.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(2) Only a small part of the vast art library assembled by Ricketts and Shannon would be described in several auction catalogues between 1933 and 1939.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(3) He probably sent Colette Willy, <i>Sept dialogues de bêtes</i>. Paris: Mercure de France, 1905, reissued 1923.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(4) Sturge Moore here annotated the letter with his medical condition: ‘phlebitis’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(5) A series of messages beginning in June 1923 and purporting to come from Wilde were notated during spiritualist sessions by two mediums (Mr V. and Mrs Travers Smith). Notes from the session on 18 June 1923 record that ‘Mr. V. was the automatist, Mrs. T.S. touching his hand’ (Hester Travers Smith, <i>Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde. </i>London: T. Werner Laurie, 1924, p. 9)</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">.<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZiv9sbTtLNIX0pPwPHEPTtFQg_FdO2EoEmQwMmEiHgb2q7ASt-yRxWMtCI9TjFI9Rwzqj_vxTHdkV_pKSef2KYcwSZ6xrJY3B2KdDRDvyyrOYAxSl9Km2zL2vAr4dptdU13H50hsxCQJpcjcxbrPkeoDDqIAfIVYcz6wfkg2fj6xNIqH6lVdrhWhoVKs/s827/PsychisMessages%20-%201.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="827" data-original-width="521" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZiv9sbTtLNIX0pPwPHEPTtFQg_FdO2EoEmQwMmEiHgb2q7ASt-yRxWMtCI9TjFI9Rwzqj_vxTHdkV_pKSef2KYcwSZ6xrJY3B2KdDRDvyyrOYAxSl9Km2zL2vAr4dptdU13H50hsxCQJpcjcxbrPkeoDDqIAfIVYcz6wfkg2fj6xNIqH6lVdrhWhoVKs/w264-h418/PsychisMessages%20-%201.jpeg" width="264" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Hester Travers Smith (ed.), Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde<br />(<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; text-align: start;"> London and Edinburgh: </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; text-align: start;">Dunedin Press,</span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; text-align: start;"> 1930</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is a happy chance that this short series of letters from exactly 100 years ago should remind us of the significant roles played by both Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore during Ricketts’s later years, for of all his wide circle of friends they were his most fervently loyal admirers from his early years until the end, and indeed beyond. Following his sudden death on 7 October 1931 they were determined to ensure that the originality of his artistic legacy should be celebrated and remembered. Their belief in this originality may seem paradoxical, in that Ricketts’s respect for traditional practice meant that his own work had seemed by many derivative and backward-looking, and Bottomley and Moore knew that changing fashions would find it too easy to marginalise him. And indeed, in many ways that happened. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The years since 1931 have been a continuing process of rediscovery and reemergence, in large part made possible by two things – the significant labour of preparatory work which made the publication of <i>Self-Portrait</i> possible in 1939, and Moore’s dutiful preservation of the large archive of materials in his care which he ensured passed in due course to the British Library (formerly the British Museum), establishing the collection of Ricketts and Shannon papers. His own personal literary archive of correspondence and other manuscripts is now at Senate House Library, University of London, and provides further essential research material. Bottomley’s equally extensive archive of correspondence, manuscripts and printed matter of all kinds has more recently been deposited at the British Library, containing much unique material directly relating to his own life-long interest in the creative output of Ricketts and Shannon.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The complex genesis of <i>Self-Portrait</i> is a story worth telling, and could generate several blog contributions. Moore’s declining health in his later years meant that he had to rely increasingly on the help of others as he became almost overwhelmed by the huge accumulation of materials which he gathered together. At quite a late stage he entrusted the task to Cecil Lewis, despite knowing that he had little knowledge of Ricketts’s artistic output; and in turn, during the very last stages of production, with the onset of war and his own return to a combat role, Lewis found himself relying on Bottomley’s help, causing some unfortunate tensions between Moore and Bottomley. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is perhaps inevitable that despite its obvious value, with the inclusion of somewhat randomly-chosen extracts from correspondence and journals, <i>Self-Portrait</i> is a flawed work, a serendipity of different kinds of materials without a sufficiently clear narrative or editorial method. The process of research and rediscovery which it set in motion has nonetheless led to a growing number of valuable monographs and PhD studies, first among them the seminal biographical and critical work of Paul Delaney which in 1990 culminated in his <i>Charles Ricketts. A Biography</i>. And now this invaluable weekly blog continues to draw in the growing number of admirers of the work of its two subjects, keeping alive the hopes of those earlier believers in the fragile beauties and vulnerabilities of a legacy whose richness and variety can still surprise and delight us.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span> <i>John Aplin</i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /></span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-88003107342032632002024-01-17T00:30:00.147+01:002024-01-21T15:25:49.479+01:00650. 100 Years Ago: Three Letters by Ricketts from January 1924 (part 1)<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">[This week's anniversary blog (number 650) is written by John Aplin, editor of the correspondence of Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore (online at Intelex, 2020), the letters of Philip Webb (Routledge, 2016), the correspondence of the Thackeray family (Routledge, 2011), and author of <i>A Thackeray Family Biography </i>(Lutterworth, 2010-2011). Together, we are preparing an edition of the collected letters of Charles Ricketts<i>.</i>]</span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">100 Years Ago: Three Letters by Ricketts from January 1924 (part 1)</span></h3><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As an occasional contributor to this blog, I know that I will not be alone in noting the milestone marked by its arrival at number 650 in a remarkable unbroken weekly sequence of articles – informative, authoritative, and always with something new to say. It is testimony to the energies of its founder that it is now established as the unrivalled online vehicle for the recording and sharing of information relating not just to Ricketts and Shannon, but to the creative world in which they operated. To mark the occasion, it seems appropriate to give it something of an anniversary flavour, and therefore I offer three of Ricketts’s letters (to be concluded in blog 651) written 100 years ago this month, in January 1924. They were addressed to two of his closest friends and admirers, Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore, and reveal, I think, something typical of Charles Ricketts – that in the midst of a crowded life he always made the time to be generous to his friends, showing a genuine interest in their own work by giving of his time and artistic advice, or in a time of difficulty by extending sympathy and support.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqPIVZldgimbT6Ow_kAQW6068bT62-jdo5JEocXc2nqUmrnyIuAcXthjYarjsOA7LRitiYkralYEhcSp7DFlaYTN1CeHRn23-2-ReImhx6_KYI77kM9e7d70nCkYaleCpIj2OTH-Cxp73qx_vYY0RFR7WFuAUDx1pdzf1cK_iztMFhz7-CH2qFd9qAs8s/s1209/Gruach_audio%20book%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1209" data-original-width="1000" height="489" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqPIVZldgimbT6Ow_kAQW6068bT62-jdo5JEocXc2nqUmrnyIuAcXthjYarjsOA7LRitiYkralYEhcSp7DFlaYTN1CeHRn23-2-ReImhx6_KYI77kM9e7d70nCkYaleCpIj2OTH-Cxp73qx_vYY0RFR7WFuAUDx1pdzf1cK_iztMFhz7-CH2qFd9qAs8s/w405-h489/Gruach_audio%20book%20-%201.jpeg" width="405" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gordon Bottomley, 'Gruach'<br />[Free audio book version by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OUFY0MAm5E" target="_blank">LibriVox on YouTube</a>]</td></tr></tbody></table><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gordon Bottomley’s one-act poetic drama <i>Gruach </i>was dedicated to Ricketts and Shannon, and Ricketts had designed the cover when it was published in 1921 with Bottomley’s <i>Britain’s Daughter </i>(for which Ricketts refused any payment, as he did for the three other volumes for Bottomley’s works for which he prepared cover designs). It was first performed by the Scottish National Theatre Society in Glasgow in March 1923, but <i>Gruach</i> was now to be given a single London performance on 20 January 1924 at the St Martin’s Theatre, staged by the Reandean company under Basil Dean, with Sybil Thorndike in the title role. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Like its predecessor </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">King Lear’s Wife</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, the work by which Bottomley is best remembered, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Gruach </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">is a prequel to a Shakespeare play (in this case </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Macbeth</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">), and portrays the first meeting and immediate attraction between the future Lady Macbeth and her husband. At the last moment, Bottomley was unable to attend the performance, a recurrence of his debilitating lung condition and a threat of a railway strike making it impossible for him to travel to London from Silverdale on Morecambe Bay. Knowing how much Bottomley would have wanted to be there, Ricketts, who attended the performance with Shannon, immediately sent Bottomley his detailed reaction to the production, calling on his wide practical knowledge of theatre, both as a designer and a frequent audience member, to make suggestions about possible rewrites where things did not quite work effectively. It is an honest and constructive critique, and Bottomley valued it as such.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrbgiOL3ccGrY1-0bcP702ILA6RaJ5DAoNnDjvIBifDNT5SAbm1MLMB_bHBryhJa-MKqGhdewvY7ewQmLC4qnD8lBBVbtG6k_I2jnAL8Vq-_VfDHkb4ZWNxFeJPPoosn5WGYeJarP16cg_s7ObL3mgna4XBJhyzosFcPSLPc_FVorX0hrmCtd3utPIYUg/s1021/Gruach%20-%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1021" data-original-width="660" height="493" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrbgiOL3ccGrY1-0bcP702ILA6RaJ5DAoNnDjvIBifDNT5SAbm1MLMB_bHBryhJa-MKqGhdewvY7ewQmLC4qnD8lBBVbtG6k_I2jnAL8Vq-_VfDHkb4ZWNxFeJPPoosn5WGYeJarP16cg_s7ObL3mgna4XBJhyzosFcPSLPc_FVorX0hrmCtd3utPIYUg/w319-h493/Gruach%20-%202.jpeg" width="319" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">George William Harris (1878-1929), 'A King'<br />(Costume Design for 'Gruach', 1924)<br />[<a href="https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/king-costume-design-gruach" target="_blank">Collection: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool</a>]</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">To Gordon Bottomley, 21 January 1924</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[BL Add MS 88957/1/76, f 83]</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">My Dear Bottomley<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">Both Shannon & I missed you yesterday, though it was prudent not to risk the weather & the Strike. Your play went excellently well; it was, I think, hurt by the end, played with uncertainty by the minor players who impersonated the servants, all of these were poor, but the reception nevertheless was excellent & had the curtain fallen 10 minutes sooner it would have been very warm indeed Fern was good, the Mother quite good, notably in her later scenes, the bridegroom poor & vulgar.</span>(1) <span style="color: #38761d;">Sybil Thorndyke was generally quite admirable, rising superbly to the occasion, with occasional lapses in intonation & in minor business, due to nervousness & hesitation in Macbeth, who was not entirely at his ease in the part.</span>(2) <span style="color: #38761d;">Gruach’s entrance in ugly bridal clothes was superb, her entranced, passionate & magnetic acting in the<sup> </sup>first scene beyond praise, her sleep walking scene admirable (this is too long and she showed hesitation) her awakening & struggle was quite admirable. Then Macbeth seemed not quite word perfect, he bungled the business of the cloaks & Sybil grew nervous & over busy – for the stage – there are one or two lines too many, or perhaps too much to do, before the exit. The steward was slow, the old woman servant quite good, the drunkard out of the picture. I do not care for the fay girl episode; it is too long</span> (3) <span style="color: #38761d;">& the two girl servants were poor. Macbeth had a good voice & spoke the longer speeches well, he was modern or vulgar in chance exclamations & I think nervous. Sybil was also nervous & many of her slight faults would probably vanish at a second performance, anyway it was very notable indeed. The grim comedy of the servants requires actors of <u>non</u> English blood, the Irish players could have done it in perfection – at least the men could. Russians & Germans would have caught the atmosphere at once. To London players the task was impossible, they were blameless bewig[g]ed cockneys trying to look barbaric. All spoke with distinctness & both Shannon & I were greatly impressed by the beauty & force of the language & the compact planning of the play.</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrsDc0xLv6MtUtnEJBwPwIfhctCReN03KUpYd-7pN0UBlmQ7JG9T8IffT2TSs7QOepxT2w-M3CwPUCePfrSFxGBXttUI3LvC1aejU7bMNarwCVZ4Ud9m3ehj-QQNJKGchRmZp8Yj_xyPkGTrsoWQJan7aRGWeiRTGjzakVQUBj7yALFzHzB3hIQCwHje4/s1227/Gruach%20-%203.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1227" data-original-width="552" height="618" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrsDc0xLv6MtUtnEJBwPwIfhctCReN03KUpYd-7pN0UBlmQ7JG9T8IffT2TSs7QOepxT2w-M3CwPUCePfrSFxGBXttUI3LvC1aejU7bMNarwCVZ4Ud9m3ehj-QQNJKGchRmZp8Yj_xyPkGTrsoWQJan7aRGWeiRTGjzakVQUBj7yALFzHzB3hIQCwHje4/w278-h618/Gruach%20-%203.jpeg" width="278" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">George William Harris (1878-1929), 'Saxon Warrior'<br />(Costume Design for 'Gruach, 1924)<br />[<a href="https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/saxon-warrior-costume-designs-gruach-0" target="_blank">Collection: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool</a>]</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><span>The Abercrombie farce is quite good fun, a little long here & there & was acted with go & comprehension. Miss Clare as the Slave R[h]odope was delicious, the Queen was too “musical comedy” & the King poor but for a quite admirable delivery of the speech about blue wine.</span>(4)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">[George Bernard] Shaw has returned to the charge over St Joan. I have undertaken it conditionally & on the understanding that it should be anonymous. I have given my reason, that if he can only write plays which take 6 days to act & with gigantic casts, I can only stage vast & expensive ventures like Parsifal & Aida on gigantic stages, regardless of expense. I dont know yet what the upshot will be.</span>(5)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">The setting of “Gruach” was quite passable, the dresses neither simple enough or not elaborate enough. I know that for these performances one cannot expect the impossible but <u>less</u> was required, in this as in diction & stage delivery the English lack essential sincerity or simplicity.</span><span>(6)</span><span style="color: #38761d;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">I shall praise Sybil up to the sky when I see her.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Best love to both.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Ever Yours<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">C Ricketts<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">PS<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Shannon was greatly impressed & less cynical than I.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">This is not quite like it looks rather better.</span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[Ricketts added a<i> sketch of the ‘Gruach’ set</i>] <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Notes</i> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1) These roles were played by Hilda Bruce Potter (Fern), Esmé Beringer (Morag) and Felix Aylmer (Conan, Thane of Fortingall).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(2) Played by Malcolm Keen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(3) The kitchen maid, sometimes called by Bottomley the ‘second sight’ girl (played by Hermione Baddeley), is a young servant who has visions, and foresees the murder of Shakespeare’s Duncan.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(4) Lascelles Abercrombie’s <i>Phoenix</i> completed the double-bill. The slave-girl Rhodope, played by Mary Clare, ‘looks a charming slave, and certainly she is an amusing one’ (<i>The Times</i>, 21 January 1924). Barbara Gott played the Queen, and Leslie Banks the King.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(5) ‘When we saw him Ricketts said he was quite decided not to do S<sup>t</sup> Joan for Shaw & in your letter he speaks doubtfully still. I hope he refuses for he cannot suit Shaw’s invention over such a subject & there is bound to be something awkward’ (Thomas Sturge Moore to Bottomley, 9 February 1924, BL Add MS 88957/1/68, f 126)<i>. </i>‘I feel with you that Ricketts’ invention is of too ardent and rich an order to be mated with St. Joan seen through Shaw’s polariscope’ (Bottomley to Sturge Moore, 25 February 1924, Senate House MS 978 17/162)<i>.</i> Despite Ricketts’s own justifiable reservations and the doubts of his friends, his decision to undertake the designs for Bernard Shaw’s <i>St Joan </i>resulted in ‘his most celebrated theatrical production’ (J.G.P. Delaney, <i>Charles Ricketts. A Biography</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990, p. 312).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(6) The costumes were designed by George William Harris (1878-1929).</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <i>John Aplin</i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[To be continued next week.]</span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-40796973684555058352024-01-10T00:30:00.324+01:002024-01-10T01:05:38.672+01:00649. A Vale Set of Punches<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">From 1897, Ricketts had copies of the publications of the Vale Press (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hacon & Ricketts, At the Sign of the Dial) </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">printed on vellum in addition to copies on paper;</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> the maximum number of copies on vellum was established at ten.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Almost immediately, from 1898, he decided to make special binding designs for the deluxe copies if buyers and collectors requested them. The spines of these copies on vellum were narrower, leaving less space for the author's name and the title of the book. For the books that were bound in (decorative) paper bindings, he used labels that could be printed on paper at Ballantyne's printing establishment in London. However, Ricketts could not use such labels for the pigskin, goatskin and vellum bindings.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">For the linen-bound books, Ricketts wanted the title in gold on the spine. The first title - Milton's <i>Early Poems</i> - came with a variant binding that had a linen label applied to the binding alongside copies with the title stamped in gold on the spine (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">sometimes this label has since come off and the spine is untitled)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">. This was done by photographing a title set in 12 pica Vale Type and having a plate made from it, slightly reducing the size. In the bindery, this could be stamped on the spine of the book.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoCto-HQP6RlbRcxYg35tRqbCcuJswGuaa_vahjuG6RiFopiIkuvaLMk_Ng0Rw3dUGhdrdzKK9sNmr7YHiOvwvVK-2yNlkK8qikHs-hBNx3xxvO1kmJREEwiJtvcZIimhj8720NaRC5dvLqlzZvuCdwZSkVFlX7e-1Xeqhs3zlx5CL1uGn3xYPfjbik14/s2359/Parables%20and%20Keats%20-%206.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2359" data-original-width="1105" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoCto-HQP6RlbRcxYg35tRqbCcuJswGuaa_vahjuG6RiFopiIkuvaLMk_Ng0Rw3dUGhdrdzKK9sNmr7YHiOvwvVK-2yNlkK8qikHs-hBNx3xxvO1kmJREEwiJtvcZIimhj8720NaRC5dvLqlzZvuCdwZSkVFlX7e-1Xeqhs3zlx5CL1uGn3xYPfjbik14/w198-h422/Parables%20and%20Keats%20-%206.jpeg" width="198" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><i>The Poems of Keats</i>, volume II<br />(Vale Press, 1898): spine</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Indeed, later editions, such as those of Keats, Shelley and Tennyson, show these characters, all of a uniform size: </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">c</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">.3 mm high (the Vale type capitals measured </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">c</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">.3,5 mm).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">For the vellum and leather copies, special punches were produced in an even slightly smaller format (<i>c</i>.2.5 mm). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The difference is readily apparent by placing a copy printed on paper and a copy printed on vellum side by side. The edition of <i>The Parables</i> (1902) is a case in point.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAq7buD3AQFaWY6bWN4WCwet-8N8C8oqybdyhtFa13jpb1DP8xTYykQ2M4iqTBcWH82DipMcISsAWtfEblnNEOnBdKuW73mXQ21RxXdjGZyfnQJu-m6seBlwNsBXQF95ew6UCTktqc6tbyEpdwze-6mTmrhK-Yqutb_AAgDbKCMMtFT3jkFGu8Q-Ld5Xo/s1986/Parables%20and%20Keats%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1986" data-original-width="1201" height="457" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAq7buD3AQFaWY6bWN4WCwet-8N8C8oqybdyhtFa13jpb1DP8xTYykQ2M4iqTBcWH82DipMcISsAWtfEblnNEOnBdKuW73mXQ21RxXdjGZyfnQJu-m6seBlwNsBXQF95ew6UCTktqc6tbyEpdwze-6mTmrhK-Yqutb_AAgDbKCMMtFT3jkFGu8Q-Ld5Xo/w277-h457/Parables%20and%20Keats%20-%201.jpeg" width="277" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><i>The Parables </i>(Vale Press, 1902)<br />Upper part of the spine of a paper copy (left)<br />and a vellum copy (right)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjleHvPQM9y1LtmZt3asBqnnph4-dnIzT6ztfkbhYfX5KrFwJN7NTGdz__C0iNK2mOKNTXSUfQhLz1NbrRYjBw2-vsn1MaMYxGic6bkWxAT3uk_tkx2U2DbeM-EwLXRLLdadUGysrlnpBiXqbeqAhCrkXQH_cwG-Pn-WbSj3EuIS5qGxUho5lZrdguvq6Q/s2335/Parables_vellum_spine%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2335" data-original-width="778" height="592" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjleHvPQM9y1LtmZt3asBqnnph4-dnIzT6ztfkbhYfX5KrFwJN7NTGdz__C0iNK2mOKNTXSUfQhLz1NbrRYjBw2-vsn1MaMYxGic6bkWxAT3uk_tkx2U2DbeM-EwLXRLLdadUGysrlnpBiXqbeqAhCrkXQH_cwG-Pn-WbSj3EuIS5qGxUho5lZrdguvq6Q/w198-h592/Parables_vellum_spine%20-%201.jpeg" width="198" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><i>The Parables </i><span>(Vale Press, 1902)</span><br /><span>Upper part of the spine of a </span><span>vellum copy</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">These deluxe copies were not bound as editions (like the paper copies), but were made one by one by hand, with the bookbinder using special stamps or dies for ornaments and binder's flowers and thus also for the characters that were applied separately (not at the same time through a plate).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">This is what Charles Ricketts wrote about in a letter to one of his most loyal collectors, Laurence Hodson in Wolverhampton. The letter dates from 1 September 1898 and is kept in the collection of the Boston Atheneum.</span></p><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">My dear Hodson<br /><br />[...]<br /><br />With regard to your very own extra special design I am hesitating about the future use of plate blocks, and in the light of recent investigations we may leave the good Riviere for the gooder Leighton who used to bind for Morris (he has lost all his hair) he has the use of the Kelmscott founts for Kelmscott bindings (we have just cut a Vale set of punches) a great advantage this for the bindings of our beautiful books. [...]<br /><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: georgia;">This letter to Hodson is extremely interesting from beginning to end - and has been quoted in full in <a href="https://charlesricketts.blogspot.com/2013/09/111-special-bindings-for-vale-press.html" target="_blank">an earlier blog no. 111 (11 September 2013)</a>. For now let's focus on that comment placed in round brackets:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(56, 118, 29); color: #38761d;">(we have just cut a Vale set of punches)</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtzZYRQETRomC25yyYX-d5EGRqWshhJmPxdoi-1L1Y7q0eVKOtHLbqs5RMJ5roG1WFj3pAoNnKLRHBd6u7u4bzcxKD-3E2bC7z2ebDFInRridyC9nKibtLKHmeRNrCoxGOC6cxHjbrCUJBpq-1vTptNyrrMmcQWyYLEFeSDnagJUygDDTJe_wv4l71eQU/s2865/Parables%20and%20Keats%20-%205.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2865" data-original-width="1753" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtzZYRQETRomC25yyYX-d5EGRqWshhJmPxdoi-1L1Y7q0eVKOtHLbqs5RMJ5roG1WFj3pAoNnKLRHBd6u7u4bzcxKD-3E2bC7z2ebDFInRridyC9nKibtLKHmeRNrCoxGOC6cxHjbrCUJBpq-1vTptNyrrMmcQWyYLEFeSDnagJUygDDTJe_wv4l71eQU/w294-h480/Parables%20and%20Keats%20-%205.jpeg" width="294" /></a></span></div><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: georgia;"><span>These special punches were used only for the copies on vellum or for the specially designed morocco bindings, such as the two volumes of the Keats edition that were specially designed for the Scottish collector John Morgan (<a href="https://charlesricketts.blogspot.com/2018/05/357-book-collector-john-morgan-1.html" target="_blank">see blogs nos. 357 and 358 about the collector John Morgan</a>). On the spines we see small heart-shaped decorations and a leaf. The lettering is applied in the same way, character after character. In some cases, the ornaments and letters are placed slightly further apart than intended, or, on the contrary, they are placed too close together, as can be seen on the spine of the vellum edition of <i>The Parables</i>: some dotted circles are right up against each other, while space has been left between others.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMv2DFJfbY5wdw3TpqjLZo9pfDW0qfMWrrKcgMEAGOGe4saqR_CIXJl0x0Ck5-u1vM0OK29iyTdDK31HB1DwLnLnLJmiQVY0nrpaLrlKhraZPTQoBXK6TlYlylfVnq-ov_Cci0y3icSsOAn8jm5v203r6niSOTJkXVrMQpISqcrtPNUZi0OlR6P7PzLfw/s599/Parables_decorations%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="599" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMv2DFJfbY5wdw3TpqjLZo9pfDW0qfMWrrKcgMEAGOGe4saqR_CIXJl0x0Ck5-u1vM0OK29iyTdDK31HB1DwLnLnLJmiQVY0nrpaLrlKhraZPTQoBXK6TlYlylfVnq-ov_Cci0y3icSsOAn8jm5v203r6niSOTJkXVrMQpISqcrtPNUZi0OlR6P7PzLfw/s320/Parables_decorations%20-%201.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Dotted circles on the spine of the vellum edition<br />of <i>The Parables</i> (Vale Press, 1902)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What happened to these special punches? </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1906, Ricketts gave novice bookbinder Sybil Pye a set of his binding tools. These are illustrated in Marianne Tidcombe's <i>Women Bookbinders, 1880-1920</i> (published in 1996): leaves, wheat, and ornaments such as brackets. The dotted circle and the heart-shaped form are not part of this series of tools, indicating that Ricketts did not give her all the punches he had made for the use of his binders at Riviere and Zaehnsdorf.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He did not hand her his punches of the small Vale type characters. Why not? </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ricketts, in <i>A Bibliography of the Books Issued by Hacon & Ricketts </i>(1904), explained why he did not want to keep the matrices and punches for his types or give them to others for use:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">As it is undesirable that these founts should drift into other hands than their designers' and become stale by unthinking use, it has been decided to destroy the punches and matrices, and type with the winding up of the firm which has used them.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The type was melted down, which will have brought in a fair sum of money. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ricketts continued:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">The punches and matrices are for the most part in the Thames [...].</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The specially made binding tools - also called punches - were kept and later given to Pye with the exception of the ones that were used for the titles on the spines of vellum and leather copies of the Vale Press books. These were thrown into the Thames as well. This explains the phrase 'for the most part' - Ricketts must have thought that these (beautiful and costly) tools would come in handy one day. In the end, he never used them again, but Pye used them for most of her bindings.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[See earlier blogs about Sybil Pye's use of tools: <a href="https://charlesricketts.blogspot.com/2012/10/66-sybil-pye-binding.html" target="_blank">No. 66. A Sybil Pye Binding</a> and <a href="https://charlesricketts.blogspot.com/2020/01/442-sybil-pyes-use-of-vale-press-type.html" target="_blank">No. 442. Sybil Pye's Use of Vale Press Type for Bookbindings</a>].</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-6717846879135573802024-01-03T00:30:00.088+01:002024-01-03T00:30:00.123+01:00648. Another Painting by Ricketts's Father<span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1876, Ricketts's father Charles Robert painted four warships in Portsmouth Harbour. The painting is now for sale at <a href="https://www.bada.org/object/royal-sovereign-donegal-royal-alfred-marlborough-portsmouth-harbour-1876" target="_blank">BADA (the British Antique Dealer's Association)</a>. The s</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">eller is the Armoury of St. James's, </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">the price being £2800.00. (In 2020 this painting was sold for </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">£300</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.)</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit6NSqGNoq1oBcu370eXyfYq0hRCPqmtQfBT_sq-mCwq1m8L1Fm8Y28AhESqn5Ic-JMVEAizK3l7DnPvd6xftN3CJ9K4BC5Jhd2KPubWjRuG5VnXVGObWae9yZDVk4W0qAXS44lv_H4TvJnHRPwcpMPsGO7K7f0s1UlkoC2EtxXJi7bN_OIyIt0LWt-fo/s1000/Portsmouth%20Harbour1876%20-%201.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="691" data-original-width="1000" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit6NSqGNoq1oBcu370eXyfYq0hRCPqmtQfBT_sq-mCwq1m8L1Fm8Y28AhESqn5Ic-JMVEAizK3l7DnPvd6xftN3CJ9K4BC5Jhd2KPubWjRuG5VnXVGObWae9yZDVk4W0qAXS44lv_H4TvJnHRPwcpMPsGO7K7f0s1UlkoC2EtxXJi7bN_OIyIt0LWt-fo/w419-h289/Portsmouth%20Harbour1876%20-%201.jpeg" width="419" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Robert Ricketts, 'Royal Sovereign, Donegal, Royal Alfred & Marlborough<br />in Portsmouth Harbour' (painting, 1876)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">The title of the work identifies the four warships depicted from left to right: 'Royal Sovereign, Donegal, Royal Alfred & Marlborough in Portsmouth Harbour, 1876'. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">This medium large oil on canvas (within Ricketts's oeuvre) measures 69 cm by 48 cm. It is signed in the lower left corner: 'C.R. Ricketts '76'.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkiA5kXe7qsi-hGlR350bnAPvzT4KXA77mcKZABhwsWUnQN5hWSi9hzRu_Mr-8bNu2yOKrUUrtLToUV2hUd6QZoBKvw6ell-Cigor5gbFW8ffTVYd1tmBKKOwiYUdGkPHDv_6f3BlOPFsyz2qGIk52ObmtIa-B8yUKCp6R2XTbPBr4NLdc0aisFNPz-Lg/s405/Portsmouth%20Harbour1876_signature%20-%201.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="141" data-original-width="405" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkiA5kXe7qsi-hGlR350bnAPvzT4KXA77mcKZABhwsWUnQN5hWSi9hzRu_Mr-8bNu2yOKrUUrtLToUV2hUd6QZoBKvw6ell-Cigor5gbFW8ffTVYd1tmBKKOwiYUdGkPHDv_6f3BlOPFsyz2qGIk52ObmtIa-B8yUKCp6R2XTbPBr4NLdc0aisFNPz-Lg/w439-h152/Portsmouth%20Harbour1876_signature%20-%201.jpeg" width="439" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Robert Ricketts, 'Royal Sovereign, Donegal, Royal Alfred & Marlborough<br />in Portsmouth Harbour' (painting, 1876): signature</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Armoury of St. James's description provides us with this information about the painting:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">The artist's inscription identifies these vessels from left to right as four mid-19th century warships in Portsmouth Harbour. The vessel in the distance on the far left is HMS Marlborough, a first-rate three-decker 131-gun screw-driven ship built in 1855. She served as the flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet from 1858 to 1864, and returned to Portsmouth to become a supply and accommodation ship in 1870. Next is the broadside ironclad HMS Royal Alfred. Commissioned in 1867 as the flagship of the North America Station, she served six years until an engineering survey discovered her boilers were so badly corroded that she had to be laid up prior to sale in 1885. To starboard of Royal Alfred is HMS Donegal, a 101-gun screw ship launched in 1858. In 1865 she took the final surrender of the American Civil War when the commerce raider CSS Shenandoah struck the Confederate colours to her. Donegal was hulked in 1886 and was merged into the Torpedo School HMS Vernon. Lastly on the far right is the experimental turret ship Royal Sovereign. The first of her kind, she was commissioned for service in the English Channel, and was used for gun and turret testing and evaluation. She paid off in October 1866 and was attached to the naval gunnery school HMS Excellent until 1873.</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-7574229179823024622023-12-27T00:30:00.106+01:002024-01-07T16:12:44.774+01:00647. New Publication: Ten Letters from Charles Shannon to Charles Ricketts<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Just before Christmas, an edition of letters from Charles Shannon to Charles Ricketts has been published: <i>Old Chap, Dear Ridgeley, Old Chump, Dear Old Ruffian, My Dear Ricketts</i>.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd_1k4ne21vc_vdgGBJd5byFMejopjQBVqwli_FzIfshXZeUmBTgIR6S5sk6eMo6dNEiQ7woY0fL6CkAj6KpHqgq-ksM0603KefrWWYKuYIXBoRxixVgm0BL0KyjE2xdqlxrx3gJNoqscXfWq9APi4zlRoH_w2_fBKSPFF2mbRaauIi8_22CublFGonjY/s1371/Omslag%20brieven%20Shannon%20met%20rug.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="1371" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd_1k4ne21vc_vdgGBJd5byFMejopjQBVqwli_FzIfshXZeUmBTgIR6S5sk6eMo6dNEiQ7woY0fL6CkAj6KpHqgq-ksM0603KefrWWYKuYIXBoRxixVgm0BL0KyjE2xdqlxrx3gJNoqscXfWq9APi4zlRoH_w2_fBKSPFF2mbRaauIi8_22CublFGonjY/w397-h172/Omslag%20brieven%20Shannon%20met%20rug.jpg" width="397" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Folded-out cover of <i style="text-align: left;">Old Chap, Dear Ridgeley,<br />Old Chump, Dear Old Ruffian, My Dear Ricketts </i><span style="text-align: left;">(2023)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">Soon after their initial meeting, Charles Shannon (1863-1937) and Charles Ricketts (1866-1931) decided to live together. On the </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">apparently rare</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">occasions when they spent time away independently they </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">maintained </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">communication </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">by letter. Shannon would write when visiting continental museums or enjoying a holiday (and perhaps more) with one of his female models, and also from home when Ricketts in turn travelled abroad to undertake research for an art history monograph, or in the company of a younger male companion.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB3DHUW-FOvnmCgx5JFzKoO-hvh75u148azo80UMNHvcJLJgEdgBy2DCumiaU5rO-jS9Z2btPWrIbAHe9m01gchgVCyzcLo5Gv1hGixGCvoXF5orwgBLGE9vgSaN26FgxC_PD66W_1IsBCx1ztsmhyyLa3YH4ZgbuwvEBc5gyuVO9hTHihjq_exy_aH7c/s1613/Old%20chap%20cover%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1613" data-original-width="1418" height="437" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB3DHUW-FOvnmCgx5JFzKoO-hvh75u148azo80UMNHvcJLJgEdgBy2DCumiaU5rO-jS9Z2btPWrIbAHe9m01gchgVCyzcLo5Gv1hGixGCvoXF5orwgBLGE9vgSaN26FgxC_PD66W_1IsBCx1ztsmhyyLa3YH4ZgbuwvEBc5gyuVO9hTHihjq_exy_aH7c/w384-h437/Old%20chap%20cover%20-%201.jpeg" width="384" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Numbered copies of Shannon's letters to Ricketts<br />at the day of publication, 22 December 2023</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">In many ways, these letters are simple affairs, modest, understated, and undemonstratively affectionate, telling us something of the equability of Shannon’s personality. </span><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">His friends knew him as a handsome and athletic man, and if he was less extrovert than his lifelong companion, he had just as clear a sense of their shared vocation. Although he seems to have been content to stand back as Ricketts’s quixotic imagination and strongly-held opinions occupied the foreground, Shannon’s sanguine temperament ensured a balance in this friendship of equals.</span><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirN0fTnWXrA3sRQsLu69DkMYkPB8GnrsvLWzLV9zJHk7qI0ukCTH3F1wBTk8NQBFX7kHAPlW_QxBWa31AA7_s4tomgBUm2f7Pwnu6GrqEUVSnJhe-7FKXbQm0vrpyJkIzZ5dd5-60tlhTbFxBj-FB6JXfQ57iaw6RRrKfA53vUVtKsKfxq_MdFa8ZQPWg/s2500/Shannon_SelfPortrait1918.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2500" data-original-width="2413" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirN0fTnWXrA3sRQsLu69DkMYkPB8GnrsvLWzLV9zJHk7qI0ukCTH3F1wBTk8NQBFX7kHAPlW_QxBWa31AA7_s4tomgBUm2f7Pwnu6GrqEUVSnJhe-7FKXbQm0vrpyJkIzZ5dd5-60tlhTbFxBj-FB6JXfQ57iaw6RRrKfA53vUVtKsKfxq_MdFa8ZQPWg/s320/Shannon_SelfPortrait1918.jpg" width="309" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Shannon, 'Self-Portrait'<br />Lithograph, 1918</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In his letters, Shannon reports on his visits to parties where artists, authors and collectors meet, on antiques purchased by Ricketts in Paris, on lectures with lantern slides, on the state of the art market, on a multi-day visit to his sisters in Sleaford (larded with childhood memories). The series concludes with the last note to Ricketts dictated to Shannon by his carers - a year after a fall down a flight of stairs left him mentally disabled.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Charles Shannon,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Old Chap, Dear Ridgeley, Old Chump, Dear Old Ruffian, My Dear Ricketts</i>.<i> Ten Letters to Charles Ricketts</i>.</span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Hague, At the Paulton, December 2023</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">40 pages, 3 illustrations, 20 x 13 cm</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Designed by Huug Schipper (Studio Tint)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Set in Proforma Medium</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Printed on Biotop 115 g. by Mostert & Van Onderen, Leiden</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Edition limited to sixty numbered copies</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Price including packaging and shipping:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">European Union: €30.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">United Kingdom: €35.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">USA and Canada: €40.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">You can express your interest by sending an email to Paul van Capelleveen [see the address in the right-hand bar]. You will receive a Paypal invoice.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-29192109930474907582023-12-20T00:30:00.173+01:002023-12-20T00:30:00.127+01:00646. Harold Acton visits Ricketts<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The British writer and aesthete Harold Acton (1904-1994), born and died in Villa La Pietra outside Florence, knew the likes of George Orwell, Henry Green, Cyril Connolly, Anthony Powell and Evelyn Waugh. Once he visited Charles Ricketts.</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbbtxgl-Wjz0afcZp16zGHs-aYo9E7-72H5C-EfMk3MUAxZ4TUbzEx_Ifq5_TIckduoyHWP07oIQ2EE6ov49Xalquvgz1liGJ7cZXKZwjRfuvD6SztTbjTE_YfPDLf4ejen3V485FQgzSLtlpz3Tlv_D8Y4FnKT-dX8tnr6XTf4fTXttzMKZZlV8Cw4sQ/s1458/Harold%20Acton%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1458" data-original-width="446" height="892" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbbtxgl-Wjz0afcZp16zGHs-aYo9E7-72H5C-EfMk3MUAxZ4TUbzEx_Ifq5_TIckduoyHWP07oIQ2EE6ov49Xalquvgz1liGJ7cZXKZwjRfuvD6SztTbjTE_YfPDLf4ejen3V485FQgzSLtlpz3Tlv_D8Y4FnKT-dX8tnr6XTf4fTXttzMKZZlV8Cw4sQ/w273-h892/Harold%20Acton%20-%201.jpeg" width="273" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Harold Acton at Oxford around 1922<br />[<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harold_Acton_(cropped).jpg" target="_blank">Wikipedia Commons</a>]</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Acton bequeathed his villa, including its extensive art collection, to New York University. The Pietra Library contains two Vale Press books: Michael Field, <i>Julia Domna</i> (1903) and Shakespeare's <i>The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra</i> (1900), two books designed by Ricketts: a first edition of Oscar Wilde's <i>The Picture of Dorian Gray</i> (London: Ward Lock, 1891) and Lord de Tabley's <i>Poems Dramatic and Lyrical</i> (London: <span lang="EN-US">Elkin Mathews and John Lane; New York: Macmillan and Company, 1893</span>), as well as Ricketts's own collection of essays <i>Pages on Art</i> (London: Constable, 1913).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">His visit to Ricketts is recorded in a letter written by Acton to the author Ralph Ricketts (1902-1998) in October 1972. He remembered that Ricketts's taste was exquisite, that he hated Cézanne and post-impressionism, and that Ricketts and Acton were both friends of </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">the artist Thomas Lowinsky.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ricketts had given Acton a tour of Lansdowne House, subtly commenting on each work of art - and he remembered Ricketts as a delightful and stimulating companion.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">He mentions also that he wrote a review of <i>Self-Portrait </i>in 1940, but that he had lost the book and the review with it. Said to be published in <i>World Review</i>, I have not been able to locate a copy yet.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The writer Ralph Robert Ricketts was born in Simla in India and an unpublished family story recorded a curious incident:</span></p><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">On one of her visits to England, Ricketts recalled his mother proudly showing his grandfather a drawing of a daffodil, which he had done for her. The old man, possibly fearing that Ricketts would go the way of his distant relation the collector, publisher, designer, and friend of Oscar Wilde, Charles Ricketts, silently tore the drawing into little pieces before sighing and finally saying "we'll say no more about that".</span><div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(56, 118, 29);">Before Ralph Ricketts published his first novel (<i>A Lady Leaves Home</i>, 1934), J.C. Squire offered him a job at <i>The London Mercury</i> for which he worked until 1939. He suffered from ill-health all his life, writing books during better periods. A leading theme in his novels was the conflict between worldly and spiritual life. The novelist L.P. Hartley praised his novel <i>The Manikin</i> (Faber and Faber, 1956), and became a friend. His last novel appeared in 1961.</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-84456427861367797612023-12-13T00:30:00.096+01:002023-12-15T13:12:53.345+01:00645. A Drawing for Montezuma?<span style="font-family: georgia;">The collections at the V&A London include a drawing by Ricketts dated - rather broadly - to 1900-1930. It is an unsigned and undated study in pencil of a nude young man, resting on his back (or deceased), with the left arm outstretched beside his head. The measurements are given in inches: 5.125 in (height) by 15 in (width) [<i>c</i> 13 x 38 cm]. The drawing was presented to the V&A by the Art Fund in 1933 and registered as E.1027-1933. [<a href=" https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O742300/drawing-ricketts-charles/" target="_blank">See the V&A website</a>]. </span><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLjIdgCuTcZc3hH9QHlzjos0TxgkxUB1qhZVWl-0WvtgJ8D_u0xDBPfpeI1T1ganwDLakRVlnZeMomk7zprLJ8QOlLKNSF2QGuhQOWDgOWtrshOrd6jyO83rFOSK6fCvs19nNVqDopywDe1aedZTRazDVuJMKtp0M6zH3zKyFtZIrTNpXgTBkGq3-qDTw/s1000/Study%20of%20a%20nude%20man_V&A%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="1000" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLjIdgCuTcZc3hH9QHlzjos0TxgkxUB1qhZVWl-0WvtgJ8D_u0xDBPfpeI1T1ganwDLakRVlnZeMomk7zprLJ8QOlLKNSF2QGuhQOWDgOWtrshOrd6jyO83rFOSK6fCvs19nNVqDopywDe1aedZTRazDVuJMKtp0M6zH3zKyFtZIrTNpXgTBkGq3-qDTw/w443-h252/Study%20of%20a%20nude%20man_V&A%20-%201.jpeg" width="443" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Ricketts, study of a nude man (pencil)<br />[V&A, London: <span style="text-align: start;">E.1027-1933]</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">If we can assume that this was a preliminary study for a painting - it need not be, of course - then there is really only one painting to consider, and then we can more accurately date the drawing to 1904-1905.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The pose of the body is even more dramatically twisted in the painting, especially the pelvis and upper legs, and </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">the genitals are less pronounced.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1905, Ricketts completed the painting </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Death of Montezuma</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, also called </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Sacrifice of Montezuma</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">. However, the sketch does not depict Montezuma himself, but a secondary figure in the foreground. There are several drawings and paintings in which Ricketts decorates the foreground - as it were - with dead bodies and this is one of them.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUlTuVZGZW4pJz24PEWS8cCQPgQErdqyEe-x-DZyG3KLUz7WQ4BXc5vfvUJVGGrscDviazc-E6D5F3lOojdTzqzFlX54Gs6Fb0kcMaf5DoaJBcFRNIoMMp3PrObq-dr2tCX0D6xXkFwdiGzpk0TEYWeAZpKjjaGbR7CrrBb3RvSM51ldJxrfKjOpys78k/s1212/The%20Death%20of%20Montezuma_1905%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1212" data-original-width="1000" height="519" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUlTuVZGZW4pJz24PEWS8cCQPgQErdqyEe-x-DZyG3KLUz7WQ4BXc5vfvUJVGGrscDviazc-E6D5F3lOojdTzqzFlX54Gs6Fb0kcMaf5DoaJBcFRNIoMMp3PrObq-dr2tCX0D6xXkFwdiGzpk0TEYWeAZpKjjaGbR7CrrBb3RvSM51ldJxrfKjOpys78k/w428-h519/The%20Death%20of%20Montezuma_1905%20-%201.jpeg" width="428" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Ricketts, <i>The Death of Montezuma</i> (1905)<br />[Private Collection]</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This oil on canvas (75 x 61 cm), dating from 1905, once belonged to the collection of Edmund Davis and is now part of a private collection.</span></p></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-63981686280944137462023-12-06T00:30:00.183+01:002023-12-08T00:40:34.499+01:00644. "A Picture Collector Mr Drucker"<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In November 1911, Charles Shannon was sent to Amsterdam by the Royal Academy to collect a painting by Jozef Israels who had died in August. Ricketts travelled with him.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">'cold January weather', t</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">hey spent four days in The Hague, Haarlem, and Amsterdam, where Shannon visited dealers and private owners. Ricketts wrote about their Dutch stay in a letter to the artist and critic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Roland_Holst" target="_blank">Richard Roland Holst (1868-1938)</a>, </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">an old friend who had first visited them in London in 1893.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> However, they had not visited Roland Holst in Amsterdam and Ricketts explained that they had had very little time to spare and, besides, they did not remember where he lived.</span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;">During their stay, they were accompanied by 'Mr Drucker', Ricketts wrote: 'A picture collector Mr Drucker usually trotted us about.'</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2kTKWmRpMcNFxH8mIV0V_Gjr0wLyc2YHyjEzxA8Wce4ZhVQsgYu3ypmGxqC2TOiILG7JFYlD6yn4SLQPZBowpOw58rj_Ipdatwx6evWkLT1jp1Lquk1Z26oEMGAsuSugf_ZTZU5q31dU6o36ARBKPgSHvWEdrXFfZL-etEOSRUkdt4bjItnzJKEvM3Y8/s1271/Drucker1939%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1271" data-original-width="897" height="429" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2kTKWmRpMcNFxH8mIV0V_Gjr0wLyc2YHyjEzxA8Wce4ZhVQsgYu3ypmGxqC2TOiILG7JFYlD6yn4SLQPZBowpOw58rj_Ipdatwx6evWkLT1jp1Lquk1Z26oEMGAsuSugf_ZTZU5q31dU6o36ARBKPgSHvWEdrXFfZL-etEOSRUkdt4bjItnzJKEvM3Y8/w303-h429/Drucker1939%20-%201.jpeg" width="303" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">J.C.J. Drucker (photo: 1939)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">This was convenient because Drucker spoke English. Although he was Dutch by birth (his father was from Germany), he had moved to London in 1883, married an English woman, Maria Lydia Fraser, and become a naturalised British citizen.</span></div><div><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Jean Charles Joseph Drucker (Amsterdam 1862 - Montreux 1944) came from a wealthy family and started collecting paintings and watercolours in 1885. He mainly acquired works from artists connected to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_School" target="_blank">Hague School</a>; later he also acquired works by their Amsterdam contemporaries such as Breitner. He acquired these artworks from the Hague branch of Goupil and from other art dealers such as Elion, Preyer, and Van Wisselingh, while the firm of Arthur Tooth and Sons advised him on the acquisition of Chinese porcelain and furniture (the latter part of his collection later proved to contain little of interest).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">From 1903, he loaned works to the Rijksmuseum and soon after, the idea arose to donate the entire collection </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">to the museum </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">- the Drucker-Fraser marriage remained childless. In early 1904, the public could admire works by Lourens Alma Tadema, Willem Maris, Anton Mauve, Albert Neuhuys and Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch in a specially decorated room. In his will Drucker stipulated that the works would be left to the museum on condition that particular rooms were made available for the collection. Despite this bequest, he also donated some works to the National Gallery in London.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1gAD9c3gmDKtE9AHSJihvqOoHcnz7D0fBGd0bzY0FvRVcl_kJRwtpSmhWtfcHASToQoRKag8_4xJBuSxM_PCNsoOAmSnnK2p_spCpboF92ew0538WxOmmzf10tXHt7wokYxZuLvtA8tQxI-6MO1MMWKbSPkWnIxh0wVvHV1wwpRMcDDd9HZ0oFHiOCQM/s976/israels_blikverte%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="976" data-original-width="680" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1gAD9c3gmDKtE9AHSJihvqOoHcnz7D0fBGd0bzY0FvRVcl_kJRwtpSmhWtfcHASToQoRKag8_4xJBuSxM_PCNsoOAmSnnK2p_spCpboF92ew0538WxOmmzf10tXHt7wokYxZuLvtA8tQxI-6MO1MMWKbSPkWnIxh0wVvHV1wwpRMcDDd9HZ0oFHiOCQM/w337-h484/israels_blikverte%20-%201.jpeg" width="337" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Jozef Israels, 'Blik in de verte' [Gaze into the distance] (1907)<br />[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam]</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1909, a specially built extension of the Rijksmuseum provided the space for a new display of the now-donated works - 38 paintings and 31 drawings. In June 1911, the Druckers also donated 12 paintings and 17 watercolours by Jozef Israels.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In view of the assignment Shannon had received in London, it was not surprising that he and Ricketts contacted Drucker.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">To Richard Roland Holst, Ricketts later wrote about Drucker: </span></p><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">I asked him if he knew your address, he did not, but a charming and very pretty young Dutch girl we met at his house spoke enthusiastically of your Pan and Lucifer stage decorations. We would have been charmed to have seen you in the evening, but chance was against it. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">[Typed transcription, BL Add MS 61715, 137-8]</span><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt;"><br clear="all" style="break-before: page;" /></span></i></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-18060064104071614112023-11-29T00:30:00.160+01:002023-12-01T16:52:44.783+01:00643. Reading The Kingis Quair at Home<p><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: georgia; text-indent: -18pt;">Handwritten notes in private press books are quite rare. Universities used to lend their books to students and professors, even private press books and limited editions, and at home users would be tempted to make notes and text corrections in library books - however, in general, examples of such traces are not catalogued, and rare to find.</span></p><p><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: georgia; text-indent: -18pt;">We often don't know if and how often such books were loaned, but thanks to digitisation projects, occasional examples of them come along.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDU5ZBfwSmdT5TnV1APFxagvG4x3EIYVTrYXJbV86bu2DP7K0LRZ3P8fgpFmdskVlG7-43BP-JcN4qlM0PFdrCoW7S3khKTUSDDCd-DUJ8CKH3mz5y0F8Q9JI1XE1XYqJaqoc8AmNZcM2nzDa4ZBcnaZ1v_8o0TfEoGyBtBX6q5jdFDB0sGlfrrZRvnHs/s1100/Quair1%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1100" data-original-width="1000" height="437" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDU5ZBfwSmdT5TnV1APFxagvG4x3EIYVTrYXJbV86bu2DP7K0LRZ3P8fgpFmdskVlG7-43BP-JcN4qlM0PFdrCoW7S3khKTUSDDCd-DUJ8CKH3mz5y0F8Q9JI1XE1XYqJaqoc8AmNZcM2nzDa4ZBcnaZ1v_8o0TfEoGyBtBX6q5jdFDB0sGlfrrZRvnHs/w397-h437/Quair1%20-%201.jpeg" width="397" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><i>The Kingis Quair</i> (Vale Press, 1903)<br />[Collection: <span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">Southern Regional Library Facility, UCLA, Los Angeles]<br />[Access: <a href="https://archive.org/details/heirefterfollowi00jame/page/n77/mode/2up" target="_blank">Internet Archive</a>]</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN-US" style="text-indent: -18pt;">A copy of the Vale Press edition of James I of Scotland's poem <i>The Kingis Quair </i>at the </span><a href="https://archive.org/details/heirefterfollowi00jame/page/n77/mode/2up" target="_blank"><span style="text-indent: -24px;">California Southern Regional Library Facility, UCLA, Los Angeles (</span><span style="text-indent: -24px;">PR2002 .K61 1903</span><span style="text-indent: -24px;">)</span></a></span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-indent: -24px;">, does not contain handwritten marks by users. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; text-indent: -24px;">However, librarians have made notes in it, and several stamps were used to identify the book's shelf number. At the front we find markings such as 'Engl. Dept' (stamped), '1/15/41' (in pencil), presumably the acquisition date, and 'April 22 '41' (stamped), the latter possibly the cataloguing date.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Still, at the back of the book, is the page with date stamps and these run from 13 February 1946 to 16 February 1976.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9dipMpdkSAjMYBbaNj7o8ttHmLE4cH6az43Q-rfP-fdMhEq_6D4RqD5RL5i-TZCI5hAP9WbucriPIfH_mwZOmfNYY8RWEBSNnjofKTDxSyHCfwcX9ZdZbJF_pnCFRRSAQdw7O0H8UwxEttNrBUgnumk4fs72Nx8eFzBu8nVWVHlcAacRp3fDXehAEPPc/s1000/Quari2%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="858" data-original-width="1000" height="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9dipMpdkSAjMYBbaNj7o8ttHmLE4cH6az43Q-rfP-fdMhEq_6D4RqD5RL5i-TZCI5hAP9WbucriPIfH_mwZOmfNYY8RWEBSNnjofKTDxSyHCfwcX9ZdZbJF_pnCFRRSAQdw7O0H8UwxEttNrBUgnumk4fs72Nx8eFzBu8nVWVHlcAacRp3fDXehAEPPc/w420-h361/Quari2%20-%201.jpeg" width="420" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><i>The Kingis Quair</i> (Vale Press, 1903)<br />[Collection: <span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -24px;">Southern Regional Library Facility, UCLA, Los Angeles]<br />[Access: <a href="https://archive.org/details/heirefterfollowi00jame/page/n77/mode/2up" target="_blank">Internet Archive</a>]</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The book was lent, also through Inter Library Loan, in 1952, 1953, 1957 (twice), 1959 (twice), 1960, 1963 (four times), 1964, 1966, 1973, and 1976 (twice).</span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;">It cannot be seen for what purpose the book was loaned and to whom. It could have been for several reasons: students who needed to read the text and could not get hold of another edition or researchers who wanted to study this as a private press book.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The book still has the original blue paper publisher's binding </span></p><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 18pt; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: -36.0pt list 18.0pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-51334737177229589642023-11-22T00:30:00.168+01:002023-11-26T17:43:07.278+01:00642. A Present for Sale<span style="font-family: georgia;">The '<a href="https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/canterbury-auction-galleries/catalogue-id-srcan10075/lot-48219067-f7ee-4287-a83e-b0b500bd6d82?utm_source=auction-alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=auction-alert&utm_content=lot-image-link&queryId=43948cb325ae3760c535f3e22e4c15df" target="_blank">Two Day Sale of Fine Art & Antiques, including Oriental, Porcelain, and Works of Art</a>' at Canterbury Auction Galleries, Canterbury (Kent) includes a Charles Ricketts drawing as lot 502 that will be sold on the first day of the sale, 25 November. The estimate is £800-£1,200.</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The description reads: <br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Watercolour - Costume design for "The Three Kings - The Coming of Christ", from a play by John Masefield for the 1928 play at Canterbury Cathedral, with artist's pencil inscription to lower right "To Mrs Bell from C. Ricketts Whitsuntide 1928", 19ins x 13.5ins, framed and glazed.<br />Provenance: Donated by the artist to Mrs Bell, wife of Dean Bell, Whitsuntide, 1928, thence gifted to Cannon Ingram Hill by Mrs Bell, and thence to the current vendor circa 2003.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">The image is slightly cropped, missing part of Ricketts's dedication. </span></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIgw1Z0PT0pOv0qYr9LxcUaAqrnZDYs136AElirUk7J6DC1_c5-9ViAwqQWb4JMCKTPbFdPsnm4DgnQlYxbWHdsNhpViMCq0Xc94VWM851WudVdT3EsjHhN8fffSN7EgLAzYyR56H0fFn2J_n-iErqto2qNluF2_xJFBM-r0x2z3hyRGNE9AMvkUmS0L4/s1576/Masefield%20sketch%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1576" data-original-width="973" height="574" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIgw1Z0PT0pOv0qYr9LxcUaAqrnZDYs136AElirUk7J6DC1_c5-9ViAwqQWb4JMCKTPbFdPsnm4DgnQlYxbWHdsNhpViMCq0Xc94VWM851WudVdT3EsjHhN8fffSN7EgLAzYyR56H0fFn2J_n-iErqto2qNluF2_xJFBM-r0x2z3hyRGNE9AMvkUmS0L4/w355-h574/Masefield%20sketch%20-%201.jpeg" width="355" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Ricketts, '<span style="caret-color: rgb(56, 118, 29); text-align: start;">The Three Kings' (watercolour sketch, 1928)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Blog 135. "<a href="https://charlesricketts.blogspot.com/2014/02/135-ricketts-in-cathedral.html" target="_blank">Ricketts in a Cathedral</a>" was devoted entirely to the sketches for the 1928 performance and to the reviews. In it a few sketches were mentioned that, like the sketch above, were in the possession of the Bell Estate, the executors of the Bishop Bell and Mrs Bell of Chichester: a design for Gaspar and one for an angel. 'The Three Kings' has the same provenance.</span></div><div><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 15.4px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: #fff9ee; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">George Bell (1883-1958) had married Henriette Livingstone in 1918, and was appointed Bishop of Chichester in 1929, but from 1925 to 1928 he had been Dean of Canterbury, which explains how he came into the possession of two of Ricketts's designs. He initiated the Canterbury Festival of the Arts, the first of which was the Masefield play in the summer of 1928, and the most famous one was T.S. Eliot's <i>Murder in the Cathedral </i>in June 1935.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i> (Blog 135)</i></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ricketts came to Canterbury in mid-May 1928 to personally deliver some of the costumes he designed, as he announced in a letter to Henrietta Bell, undated but about 9 May 1928 (now part of the Carl Woodring collection at Rice University, Houston, Texas):</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Dear Mrs Bell<br /><br />I propose bringing the King’s [Kings’] Dresses, and all the properties to the Deanery by car on Monday 14. I hope to be there shortly after 12, deposit them, & return to Chilham by the same car. Lady Davis is lending me the car & the services of their excellent chauffeur Kirkwood. Caspar’s dress is superb. There are some 10 crowns etc. The vases for the perfumes, the Shepheard’s [<i>Shepherd's</i>] hat, brooches, lilies. The Holy Child is a great success. I have just had him photographed.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a 'PS' Ricketts wrote:<br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #38761d;">I hope you have a lumber room in which The Kings robes can be hung up. The cloaks are large.</span><br /><br />Another 'PS' was written on the envelope:<br /><br /><span style="color: #38761d;">Do bring pressure to bear on the Annunciation by Light. It would bring a flash of beauty in a scene which is too long drawn out.</span>*<br /></span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In a letter to the poet and playwright Gordon Bottomley, dated 12 May 1928, Ricketts described the costumes for the three kings in detail, and added that they were actually made at his country retreat, the Keep, Chilham Castle.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">I expect the difficulties at the end with nothing but amateur workers to do everything. Christ appears at the Choir entrance and speaks – half invisible – in a white seamless robe with Crown & pectoral of rubies & rock crystal, & to secure respectable Kings I am having their dresses made in my house. The Warrior King is in gold armour, chain mail & embroidered Tabard, blood red cloak, lined with scarlet; he is not unlike Rossetti’s David at L[l]andaff but cruel in effect. The Diplomat King is in a white St Joan Courtier dress – circa Henry V, scarlet bonnet, robe of white cloth barred with irmine [<i>ermine</i>]; he will have a Borgia-Richard III element in his make up. The Wise (oriental King) looks like a Magi in Orange gold, black and green, he looks half Mahomedan & wears jewelled slippers. If we can afford Shields for the attendants these will be symbolical. I think we can manage banners. The 4 blue angels attending on the Virgin have heraldic wings made of ermine tails, gold acanthus leaves & peacock eyes, they wear gold gloves. The big male angels are wingless, in white seamless robes, long gold copes & their hair is hidden under a sphinx like hood of gold, I want their faces painted dead white. </span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">[British Library, Add MS 88957/1/76, f 103]*</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><i><span style="font-family: georgia;">Note: The lot closed at £1,150.</span></i></div><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">* Thanks are due to John Aplin for transcriptions of the letters.</span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-15369366536182762302023-11-15T00:30:00.181+01:002023-11-16T00:41:42.889+01:00641. Books at the 'The First Exhibition of Original Wood-Engraving'<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In earlier blogs about the Ricketts & Shannon circle's exhibition at The Dutch Gallery in December 1898, 'First Exhibition of Original Wood-Engraving', I wrote about criticisms of the typography of the catalogue and about the authorship of its introduction (see blogs <a href="https://charlesricketts.blogspot.com/2019/09/426-exhibition-catalogue-design-1898.html" target="_blank">426</a> and <a href="https://charlesricketts.blogspot.com/2020/06/462-1898-exhibition-of-wood-engraving.html" target="_blank">462</a>).</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWxwJVexpbnnSa6bs4em0d_x6U2CwP7yixL22dwphn-ka44BxDuaeriOQfQgDi8-Jc0sMF9JTdjQI5Gg5vwyWRH2CD1x5056o0oCz9QUCwYUqbj2lLngEnRs0OTQX23zWlZLSf5bsWHGygFwG0q_YAtRC6mgBH_k55C9I3vKbxhzvX4q5jc7dUcKdJ4_U/s2325/TheFirstExhibitionofOriginalWoodEngraving_7.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2325" data-original-width="1588" height="479" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWxwJVexpbnnSa6bs4em0d_x6U2CwP7yixL22dwphn-ka44BxDuaeriOQfQgDi8-Jc0sMF9JTdjQI5Gg5vwyWRH2CD1x5056o0oCz9QUCwYUqbj2lLngEnRs0OTQX23zWlZLSf5bsWHGygFwG0q_YAtRC6mgBH_k55C9I3vKbxhzvX4q5jc7dUcKdJ4_U/w328-h479/TheFirstExhibitionofOriginalWoodEngraving_7.jpg" width="328" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The First Exhibition of Original Wood-Engraving</i> (1898: colophon)</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The catalogue lists only prints, but the colophon mentions prints and books. Which books were actually on display?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">For a study of such exhibitions, the British Library's digitised newspapers (<a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk" target="_blank">see British Newspaper Archive, BNA</a>) are indispensable. Sometimes it is necessary to look for something other than the obvious. In my earlier search for this exhibition, I got a few results, but now that I searched for 'Pissarro' (Lucien Pissarro) and 'wood-engraving', among the results were some reviews of the <i>First Exhibition of Original Wood-Engraving</i> that I had not previously seen. And these reviews mention books that were on display in 1898.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">A review, signed B.N., appeared in <i style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">The Westminster Gazette, </i><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">22 December 1898, p. 4: </span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">'Wood Engravings at the Dutch Gallery'. It includes this paragraph:</span></span></p><p><span lang="EN-GB" style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Next to the books of the Kelmscott series the Vale publications embody the most serious effort made in this generation at fine book-making, and as such they are, with whatever reservation, deserving of due respect. A case of these books is on view in the gallery. Neither the type, the setting, nor the decoration of these books quite satisfies my own eye, but there are many things in them one can admire. The prettiest page (to my mind) is the front page of Campion's songs, with its design of violets. The most beautiful and elaborate of the woodcut designs are certainly those made for the "Daphnis and Chloe," of which a set is framed on the walls.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">The case mentioned </span>probably was a tabletop display case, given Edith Cooper's diary entry (<span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Michael Field, Journal, 3 December 1898 [BL Add MS 46787: f 126r]):</span></span></p><p><span lang="EN-GB" style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Under glass the Dial books are shown – <u>The World at Auction</u> unsurpassed among them. </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: normal;"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">Another review, </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">‘The World of Art’, published in</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"> </span><i style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">The Glasgow Herald, </i><span style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;">5 December 1898, p. 7, mentions other books.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Other designs have been made to illustrate volumes of poems such as those by Drayton, Sir Philip Sidney, Blake, "The Rowleie Poems of Thomas Chatterton," "The Poems and Sonnets of Henry Constable." &c. The designs for the books are set in beautiful frames of engraved floral scrolls, and are of exquisite workmanship.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The term 'frames' in this quote refers to the borders Ricketts designed for the opening pages of his books.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq3xbge1l2fWV_bq2xQXkIhKtM9nn_sQM3Yst3_Yc59JQyveh4g58pJCCzdyLh6_UyeFpl7y1gi5eLMUzxIJtiRZxhzvI2pL8h8JoxcrgUimdMAPlfEU-uhr8ySdhjQcHqPLBwUUy1mo33D7or3JwBAg74CDgcgfQzJSR03PKTMAvAp-H3xV6OHzUMw9A/s1485/Campion%20opening%20page%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1485" data-original-width="1000" height="525" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq3xbge1l2fWV_bq2xQXkIhKtM9nn_sQM3Yst3_Yc59JQyveh4g58pJCCzdyLh6_UyeFpl7y1gi5eLMUzxIJtiRZxhzvI2pL8h8JoxcrgUimdMAPlfEU-uhr8ySdhjQcHqPLBwUUy1mo33D7or3JwBAg74CDgcgfQzJSR03PKTMAvAp-H3xV6OHzUMw9A/w353-h525/Campion%20opening%20page%20-%201.jpeg" width="353" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Thomas Campion, Fifty Sonnets (1987: opening page]</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The book case contained at least seven Vale Press books:</span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. Michael Drayton, <i>Nimphidia and the Muses Elizium </i>(1896);<br />2. Thomas Campion, <i>Fifty Sonnets </i>(1897);<br />3. William Blake, <i>The Book of Thel. Songs of Innocence. And Songs of Experience </i>(1897);</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">4. <i>The Poems and Sonnets of Henry Constable </i>(1897);</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">5. <i>The Sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney </i>(1897);</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">6. <i>The Rowley Poems of Thomas Chatterton </i>(1898);</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">7. Michael Field, <i>The World at Auction </i>(1898).</span><br /><p><span lang="EN-GB" style="letter-spacing: -0.15pt;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The last two books had appeared in June, five months prior to the exhibition.</span></span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-31438153470539700842023-11-08T00:30:00.255+01:002023-11-09T18:07:01.336+01:00640. Osmaston, a Collector<span style="font-family: georgia;">Probably the best-known collectors of Charles Shannon's paintings are the wealthy mining financier Edmund Davis and his wife Mary Davis, née Halford, but there were others, such as poet Gordon Bottomley, designer and collector Pickford R. Waller, Welsh judge and legal author William Evans, artist and collector Cecil French, art collector and lawyer John Quinn, and business man and art collector Kojiro Matsukata. This list also includes the names of William Pye, May Morris, </span><a href="https://glasgowmuseumsartdonors.co.uk/2019/02/10/james-howden-hume-1866-1938/" style="font-family: georgia;" target="_blank">James Howden Hume</a><span style="font-family: georgia;">, </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">and Joseph Bibby.</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">There are collectors whose names are less well known, such as P.J. Ford, Ralston Mitchell, A. Arnold Hannay, H.G. Smith, whose biographies are perhaps not very comprehensive. A now obscure collector was </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Francis Osmaston. He owned two of Shannon's paintings.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFzS_RvBWKnoYVvlqlf6x_wOQ_RxFCur5EyYDVoJWi4vu8RCdvjd_PJfGFEU_2MLnfx3y4TamALQUSs2TUoUJwkoQ363SezQash6aeAXqTMlTLMvG2O5NB2y78Sa9ISE6n6WRLAysSz4ktCDBjb-9B0vEi4MQt6h7HuwmDy6Z6Q6nbPDn0grEJRghn3-8/s1341/SaltWater_blogversion%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1341" data-original-width="1000" height="531" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFzS_RvBWKnoYVvlqlf6x_wOQ_RxFCur5EyYDVoJWi4vu8RCdvjd_PJfGFEU_2MLnfx3y4TamALQUSs2TUoUJwkoQ363SezQash6aeAXqTMlTLMvG2O5NB2y78Sa9ISE6n6WRLAysSz4ktCDBjb-9B0vEi4MQt6h7HuwmDy6Z6Q6nbPDn0grEJRghn3-8/w396-h531/SaltWater_blogversion%20-%201.jpeg" width="396" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Shannon, 'Salt Water' (1902)<br />Oil on canvas. Usher Gallery, Lincoln<br />From the collection of F.P.B. Osmaston, later owned by Preston Kerrison</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Francis Plumptre Beresford Osmaston (1857-1925) studied at Oxford and was called to the bar in 1885 (Lincoln's Inn), London. With his wife Eleanor Margaret Field, an active suffragist, and three children, he lived in Church Row, Hampstead; later they lived in Limpsfield and Beacon Crag, Portheleven. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1901, he inherited money from his father </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">John Wright (who changed his name to John Osmaston). The</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> estate was sworn at £2,826. Years before, in 1884, his father had to sell their family house Osmaston Manor in Derbyshire, and </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">separately</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> auctioned the collection of paintings, said to include works by Rubens, Constable and Turner, and 'Monna Lizza by L. da Vinci' (Derby Mercury, 1884, </span><a href="https://houseandheritage.org/2016/01/20/osmaston-manor/" style="font-family: georgia;" target="_blank">see Osmaston Manor</a><span style="font-family: georgia;">).</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">The authenticity of the paintings could not be guaranteed and the proceeds were very modest.</span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Osmaston translated works by the philosopher G.W.F. Hegel and published a drama about Cromwell (1906), as well as essays about art and poetry anthologies. A critic said of him: 'Mr. Osmaston can hardly be said to write for the general reader' (<i>The Queen, </i>16 January 1909). </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">He also wrote </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">a book on the painter Tintoretto, <i>The Art and Genius of Tintoret</i> (London: Bell, 1915),</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> and in 1927, Charles Ricketts consulted this monograph </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">for his research into a purchase by Sydney Cockerell [see British Library </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Add MS 58085, f81].*</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Osmaston also dined with Ricketts and Shannon, as evidenced by a 19 February 1904 diary entry by Ricketts:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">Friday. Fry & Binyon to grub & Osmaston. Worked on plague.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">[BL Add MS 58102]<br /><br />Roger Fry and Laurence Binyon were regular guests. 'The Plague' was a painting that ended up at Musée de Luxembourg (now Musée d'Orsay) in Paris through Davis's mediation.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Osmaston acquired at least two paintings by Shannon and one by Ricketts:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">1.</span></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-weight: normal;">Charles Shannon, '</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Salt Water' (1902). </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: normal;">Oil on canvas, 76 x 56,2 cm. Location: </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: normal;">Usher Gallery, Lincoln (purchased from Preston Kerrison, 1953).</span></p></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">2.</span></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Charles Shannon, 'Self-Portrait (Man in a Striped Shirt)' (1901). </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: normal;">Oil on canvas. Location unknown.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">3.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Charles Ricketts, 'The Good Samaritan' (exhibited 1907). </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-weight: normal;">Oil on canvas. Brought in by Osmaston at the </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Red Cross Sale, 1915, and bought by Mary Davis. On this occasion, Ricketts called Osmaston an 'over-generous person'.**</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-weight: bold; margin: 0cm;"><br /></p><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>* For this reference, thanks are due to John Aplin.</i></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>** J.G.P. Delaney, </i>Charles Ricketts <i>(1990), p. 290.</i></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-79477323990131945202023-11-01T00:30:00.215+01:002023-11-03T16:31:37.557+01:00639. The Sower, The Reaper<span style="font-family: georgia;">An oeuvre catalogue of Charles Shannon's paintings does not exist. Often his paintings are difficult to date and there are quite a few themes that he depicted repeatedly. In addition, there are studies for paintings with the same title, and paintings with identical titles exist in larger and smaller versions.</span><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Around five or six paintings were later destroyed, some by the artist himself, others by fire and perhaps by acts of war. On the other hand, around twenty paintings are attributed to him that are probably not his work. In short, it is not easy to oversee his extensive oeuvre. A conservative estimate is about 160-165 paintings.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRd80qRG21Dtk_1KGwHU2avf7Z3ZgLT64QgecvxZTOf_i_lqQONIpduokYBryv7DRTeXJIlm7xGcydoYdUj2xLGhKlq1cQ5AfIqoxm8f4VvG3i34Yse7dluFeMm7mF9-59f7i8un_CuHStlsi2aWo1y4u5vaLGd5pM3y6neqwYHQrlqqPmUcxo5YBsKIE/s906/Sower%20Reaper%20Lithograph%20-%2054.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="906" height="393" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRd80qRG21Dtk_1KGwHU2avf7Z3ZgLT64QgecvxZTOf_i_lqQONIpduokYBryv7DRTeXJIlm7xGcydoYdUj2xLGhKlq1cQ5AfIqoxm8f4VvG3i34Yse7dluFeMm7mF9-59f7i8un_CuHStlsi2aWo1y4u5vaLGd5pM3y6neqwYHQrlqqPmUcxo5YBsKIE/w418-h393/Sower%20Reaper%20Lithograph%20-%2054.jpeg" width="418" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Shannon, "The Sower and the Reaper' (1904)<br />Lithograph</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Shannon limited himself to a small range of subjects to which he returned again and again, in pencil sketches, lithographs, pastels, watercolours and oil paintings.</span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;">An example of a theme that Shannon used for a lithograph and for two oil paintings is taken from the Bible, John 4:36: 'And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.'</span><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is not the religious aspect that fascinated him. Although he was the son of a vicar, his paintings on a biblical theme such as the parable of the wise and foolish virgins were not about Christianity; Shannon was more concerned with technique, composition and colour than with the drama or the meaning of a story. The same goes for the sower and the reaper.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nor could realism deeply captivate him, although he initially tried to become a painter like Titian. He therefore saw no harm in depicting both the sower and the reaper in the field in one act, a scene that obviously never occurred in the farmer's daily business. Nevertheless, they were often depicted in parallel in church windows or, for example, in a work by his Dutch contemporary, the artist Jan Toorop, who depicted the two of them with their backs turned to each other.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Shannon took a different approach. He had the pair - obviously representing Life and Death - do a kind of rural dance, they stride across the field in what seems like an embrace. R.A. Walker described the image in <i>The Lithographs of Charles Shannon </i>(1920): </span></p><p><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">A slightly clothed male figure resting a basket of corn on his hip is taking a handful of grain from it as he strides along. By his side the reaper with scythe on his shoulder links arms with him and speaks in his ear.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1904, Shannon started with a lithograph, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">‘The Sower and the Reaper’. There were fifty impressions in black or in dark green.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Two versions in oil would follow, one of which can be dated to around 1915; the second has not been dated yet. These versions make an entirely different impression. The undated version most closely resembles the dark image of the lithograph.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGjl5xtqqiqaPZoMpyDSN2UWIBqjWScFRvyFl2IhHKp_Qx0C3oB2iZ3ux4iRcMQ9AC3-RjVOgqK3cF56TwghxUR3f4PcH_ZA8-amK34aNhQYsTBVQU2IXl7s0qZDaPXs_SbsT9C0iygU7aZEGmreM0snvvFceBs8nPw6WsCfbTLI-IgWOOX7Cb3t4SKLc/s1035/Reaper%20Sower%20Reaper%20painting%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1035" data-original-width="1000" height="444" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGjl5xtqqiqaPZoMpyDSN2UWIBqjWScFRvyFl2IhHKp_Qx0C3oB2iZ3ux4iRcMQ9AC3-RjVOgqK3cF56TwghxUR3f4PcH_ZA8-amK34aNhQYsTBVQU2IXl7s0qZDaPXs_SbsT9C0iygU7aZEGmreM0snvvFceBs8nPw6WsCfbTLI-IgWOOX7Cb3t4SKLc/w429-h444/Reaper%20Sower%20Reaper%20painting%20-%201.jpeg" width="429" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Shannon, 'The Sower and the Reaper' (undated)<br />Oil on panel<br />[<span style="text-align: left;">Usher Gallery, Lincoln]</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In this picture, the landscape is as sketchily rendered as in the lithograph, although a tree to the left and a dog to the right are more clearly visible, as is a bridge in the background. The emphasis is on the proximity of the two people - even to the extent that it appears to be a dance of death. This version is part of the collection of the Usher Gallery in Lincoln. (Over time, the painting may have become darker due to the varnish.)</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhofv3k4ljO2zbK0zXzgnk5NLjSCUotZ2fI1F-c0qelQsDNErniJHYSyZQcNNcSPcaR1UuVp8ma2-hSIeczRZxAjky5G11gfRc1PuaMiWvcGRIYiZeOLaDGFlybuhwAavHrVHqJDi7c6ylsinyEakAMDAOj_9bea3oNlAG-n_UEU4GTWbxGY5VgJ_APDbc/s1000/Sower%20Reaper%20painting%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="894" data-original-width="1000" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhofv3k4ljO2zbK0zXzgnk5NLjSCUotZ2fI1F-c0qelQsDNErniJHYSyZQcNNcSPcaR1UuVp8ma2-hSIeczRZxAjky5G11gfRc1PuaMiWvcGRIYiZeOLaDGFlybuhwAavHrVHqJDi7c6ylsinyEakAMDAOj_9bea3oNlAG-n_UEU4GTWbxGY5VgJ_APDbc/w434-h388/Sower%20Reaper%20painting%20-%201.jpeg" width="434" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Shannon, 'The Sower and the Reaper' (<i>c</i>.1915)<br />Oil on panel<br />[<span style="text-align: left;">Willam Morris Gallery, London]</span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"><br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the circa 1915 version, from the collection of the William Morris Gallery in London, the figures are in more cheerful colours in a clearly painted landscape with a stream running from left to right, an elegant wooden bridge to the right, a barking dog stands in front of a fence that closes off the field, to the left is a tree, and a church tower and barns or houses can be seen in the background on the right.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The sower is no longer half-naked but dressed in a red shirt and his companion is less sinister, more like an older brother. The painting, by the way, is considerably larger: 101,2 x 106 cm (the darker version is 61 x 62 cm).</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-54190548632498075752023-10-25T00:30:00.065+02:002023-10-25T10:45:22.485+02:00638. The Artists as Gardeners<span style="font-family: georgia;">During World War I, Charles Ricketts corresponded with some soldiers at the front, including the young artist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Esmond_Lowinsky" target="_blank">Thomas Lowinsky</a> (1892-1947). While healing from an injury to his face, Lowinksy heard nightingales singing in a desolate landscape ravaged by war. </span><div><div><br /> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu-DQEnpe0beuRnPihU-mgdz8GOWNzNZapfLGa4ZJ1h9NqNeHsZsGSrH_Vf2hryVJrzrgQEDkqqIyX5qYXrk7rgjX8AkqNlTTuJ-k2W0IOmaCZHOT9Ys1GNrBzG5iWpkpIZnYwhhpyJ6MUIomHd32dxcPykeyiAi7_S_h1Cfr0e7Dd_DftFlGnEGxp07M/s1136/lowinsky_flora%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1136" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu-DQEnpe0beuRnPihU-mgdz8GOWNzNZapfLGa4ZJ1h9NqNeHsZsGSrH_Vf2hryVJrzrgQEDkqqIyX5qYXrk7rgjX8AkqNlTTuJ-k2W0IOmaCZHOT9Ys1GNrBzG5iWpkpIZnYwhhpyJ6MUIomHd32dxcPykeyiAi7_S_h1Cfr0e7Dd_DftFlGnEGxp07M/s320/lowinsky_flora%20-%201.jpeg" width="282" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Thomas Lowinsky, 'The Mask of Flora' (1931)<br />[Wolverhampton Arts and Heritage] </span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div></div><div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Ricketts wrote back to him on 20 July 1918 [Typed transcription, BL Add MS 61718, ff 88-91]. All his letters to Lowinsky try to give him news from London so he can turn his attention away from the horror of the trenches for a while. This particular letter meanders from concern about Lowinsky's condition to ballet and music news from London and on to gossip about engagements and poets who seem cheaper versions of Rupert Brooke, before going back to worries about the repercussions the explosion will have on Lowinsky's health and mental condition. </span></div><div><br /></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">And then it's time to return to Lowinsky's bird watching before Ricketts switches to hilarious gardening tips.</span><div><br /><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: georgia;">I have heard the same thing about the nightingales in the sheltered woods. I should have thought it late for them to be singing; they stopped at Cranleigh about a week ago, they probably flew away. The lark does not surprise me; on a paper cover I have designed for Binyon’s book about the war I have represented France ploughing a battlefield with a lark singing over the plough. The lark is the bird of France, it has France’s gaiety, determination and persistence. The nightingale is Italy. He sings in perfection for a short breathless time. There are places in Italy where you cannot sleep owing to his song, and the scent of seringa [<i>syringa</i>] is thick like a clotted taste upon the lips. This year the seringa has been poor; all the flowers have been the same, for that matter, and devoured by a pest of green flies. Shannon and I have tried to keep our pots of pansies clean with an old tooth brush, and to-day I carted in the white geraniums, which were getting sodden with the rain, which reminds me of a friend who used to hold an umbrella over her Burmese lillies [<i>lilies</i>] when it rained.</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite their age difference, Lowinsky would always remember Ricketts as his dearest friend.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-56297476784908445922023-10-18T00:30:00.469+02:002023-10-18T15:05:16.817+02:00637. Under Whose Supervision?<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Charles Rickets could use several variants of his name, and did so in the colophons of the Vale Press editions. He designed the books that were printed under his supervision at the Ballantyne Press in London where a hand-press was reserved for this work.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbldEDLM7Dr7L4I2VJPagu5YSYrBjxZek98yindyKX88b2TVpVJrZ4_NY9SoJZn_dNAWUXH9evbV5W90Q-NMacCk-GWUI9UE3iGH9oh-BBXVcQiktXtBBcfx-Kkw-Wm6q5ClNtOeWqvoDo-_27vsWZ8QMd3AsOHwp_plPDgaPZWYUTUrVQo0z4SH1AEvA/s1000/ValePressname%20-%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="601" data-original-width="1000" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbldEDLM7Dr7L4I2VJPagu5YSYrBjxZek98yindyKX88b2TVpVJrZ4_NY9SoJZn_dNAWUXH9evbV5W90Q-NMacCk-GWUI9UE3iGH9oh-BBXVcQiktXtBBcfx-Kkw-Wm6q5ClNtOeWqvoDo-_27vsWZ8QMd3AsOHwp_plPDgaPZWYUTUrVQo0z4SH1AEvA/w411-h246/ValePressname%20-%202.jpeg" width="411" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Colophon (detail) of Milton, <i>Early Poems</i> (Vale Press, 1896)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The colophon of the first book, Milton's <i>Early Poems </i>(1896) mentions: 'Seen through the press by Charles Sturt. The decorations are designed and cut on the wood by Charles Ricketts under whose supervision the book has been </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">printed by the Ballantyne Press'. The name Sturt was a pseudonym of Ricketts.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The second book, Walter Savage Landor's <i>Epicurus, Leontion and Ternissa </i>(1896), had a similar colophon text including the phrase: 'the build of the book and its decoration being by Charles Ricketts.'</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The name Charles Ricketts also appears in the subsequently published volumes.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">However, for <i>Vaughan's Sacred Poems Being a Selection</i> (1897) the name 'C.S. Ricketts' is chosen, perhaps because Ricketts thought that this form of the name fitted more easily into the cross-shaped colophon.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ZqpyBAnJZSPb5RMDRw1ZwV3DgPKStnjvpLIYy3HClE0yxlLa-0_nuL3YXUG98kPc316a5YSA4e4zQahQ4CxgcI5WxS_vZnXgmR6ncqtjP9aBWRxwy-2448Dr6fHNffM3CRCTQVtiw-YILVWdWSwo-iBZIVeVJFuZxS3jIL4uVf8sukK7HI60SiiYfEg/s1411/ValePressname%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1411" data-original-width="1000" height="573" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ZqpyBAnJZSPb5RMDRw1ZwV3DgPKStnjvpLIYy3HClE0yxlLa-0_nuL3YXUG98kPc316a5YSA4e4zQahQ4CxgcI5WxS_vZnXgmR6ncqtjP9aBWRxwy-2448Dr6fHNffM3CRCTQVtiw-YILVWdWSwo-iBZIVeVJFuZxS3jIL4uVf8sukK7HI60SiiYfEg/w406-h573/ValePressname%20-%201.jpeg" width="406" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Colophon of <i style="text-align: left;">Vaughan's Sacred Poems Being a Selection</i><span style="text-align: left;"> (1897)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next volume, again, has the name 'Charles Ricketts': </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Poems & Sonnets of Henry Constable</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (1897), but </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">immediately afterwards, in Lucius Apuleius, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Excellent Narration of the Marriage of Cupide and Psyches </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1897)</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">, a third variant is introduced: 'Charles S. Ricketts.'</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">A fourth variant, 'C. Ricketts', appears in a volume written by Ricketts himself: Charles Ricketts, <i>A Defence of the Revival of Printing </i>(1899). 'C. Ricketts' is mentioned as the book's designer in the colophon; binding and title page give the author's name as 'Charles Ricketts'. Does this indicate modesty? There was room enough for the full first name in the colophon.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">There seems to be no consistency in format, chronology, author or genre, indicating that each colophon was rewritten (with the exception of the Vale Shakespeare volumes) and that there was no absolute preference, except that the name form 'Charles Ricketts' was favoured, and that the less popular version Charles S. Ricketts was used only twice.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In one case, Ricketts's name is not mentioned at all (except in the publisher's name Hacon & Ricketts); this concerns Maurice de Guérin's <i>The Centaur. The Bacchante</i> (1899). The omission, unique for Vale Press books, may have been an oversight, as the text of this colophon differed from the preceding because this was the first Vale Press book to be illustrated not by Ricketts but by his friend T.S. Moore. </span></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">List of variants (titles have been taken from the front of the book)</span></h3><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Charles Ricketts</b> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">[74 volumes]</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">[1] Milton, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Early Poems </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1896); [2] </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Walter Savage Landor, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Epicurus, Leontion and Ternissa </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1896); [3] </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">John Suckling, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Poems</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (1896); [4] </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">John Gray, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Spiritual Poems, Chiefly Done Out of Several Languages</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (1896); [5] </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">William Shakespeare, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Passionate Pilgrim </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1896); [6] John Drayton, <i>Nimphidia and the Muses Elizium</i> (1896); [7] Thomas Campion, <i>Fifty Songs </i>(1896); [8] Matthew Arnold, <i>Empedocles on Etna. A Dramatic Poem </i>(1896); [9] William Blake, <i>The Book of Thel. Songs of Innocence. And Songs of Experience </i>(1897), [10] Michael Field, <i>Fair Rosamund </i>(1897); [11] </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Poems & Sonnets of Henry Constable</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (1897); [12] </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">E.B. Browning, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Sonnets From the Portuguese</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (1897); [13] Charles Ricketts & Lucien Pissarro, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">De la typographie en de l'harmonie de la page imprimée. William Morris et son influence sur les arts et métiers </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1898); [14-15] </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Rowley Poems of Thomas Chatterton</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (2 volumes, 1898); [16] Michael Field, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The World at Auction (</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">1898); [17] </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Lyrical Poems of Shelley </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1898); [18-19] </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Poems of John Keats </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(2 volumes, 1898); [20] Dante Gabriel Rossetti, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Blesses Damozel </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1898); [21] William Blake, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Poetical Sketches </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1899); [22] S.T. Coleridge, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In Seven Parts </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1899); [23] Robert Browning, <i>Dramatic Romances and Lyrics</i> (1899); [24-62] The Vale Shakespeare edition (39 volumes, 1900-1903); [63] Michael Field, <i>The Race of Leaves </i>(1901); [64] <i>Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam</i> (1901); [65-67] <i>The Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley</i> (3 volumes, 1901-1902); [68] <i>Poems From Wordsworth </i>(1902); [69] <i>Ecclesiastes; or, The Preacher, and The Song of Solomon </i>(1902); [70] <i>The Parables </i>(1903); [71] Michael Field, <i>Julia Domna </i>(1903); [72] King James of Scotland, <i>The Kings Quair </i>(1903); [73] Christopher Marlowe, <i>Doctor Faustus </i>(1903); [74] T. Sturge Moore, <i>Danaë </i>(1903).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>C.S. Ricketts </b></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">[9 volumes]</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">[1] </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Vaughan's Sacred Poems Being a Selection</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (1897); [2] </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">D.G. Rossetti, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Hand and Soul </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1899); [3] <i>Shakespeare's Sonnets. Reprinted from the Edition of 1609</i> (1899); [4] Alfred Lord Tennyson, <i>In Memoriam </i>(1900); [5] Alfred Lord Tennyson, <i>Poems </i>(1900); [6-7] <i>The Life of Benvenuto Cellini </i>(2 volumes, only one with a colophon, 1900); [8] Sir Thomas Browne, <i>Religio Medici, Urn Burial, Christian Morals, and Other Essays</i> (1902); [9] William Meinhold, <i>Mary Schweidler, The Amber Witch, The Most Interesting Trial for Witchcraft Ever Known [...] </i>(1903).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Charles S. Ricketts </b>[2 volumes]</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">[1] Lucius Apuleius, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Excellent Narration of the Marriage of Cupide and Psyches </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1897); [2] </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney </i><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1898).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>C. Ricketts </b>[3 volumes]</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">[1] Lucius Apuleius, <i>De Cupidinis et Pschyces Amoribus Fabula Anilis </i>(1901); [2] </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">A Catalogue of Mr. Shannon's Lithographs</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> [</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">the title page mentions his name twice, as author and illustrator: 'Charles Ricketts'] </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1902); [3] Charles Ricketts, <i>A Bibliography of the Books Issued by Hacon & Ricketts </i>[introduction signed: Charles Ricketts] (1904). </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-91281256804458327292023-10-11T00:30:00.329+02:002023-10-12T13:18:44.578+02:00636. Descent from the Cross<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">A painting by Charles Ricketts will be auctioned in <a href="https://auctions.dreweatts.com/auctions/8694/drewea1-10405/lot-details/bc42457e-0d0d-4b57-80b2-b08100f0ee40" target="_blank">Dreweatts's auction Old Master, British and European Art</a> on 13 October. It is a scene often painted by Ricketts, 'The Descent from the Cross'.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgEgnLh1lYU2y53SA4rcAEtaHfpclNy7ETgoXM6CDXhAIjR2JBQdnGp_SV9AUZB99KvVhUJe01d2OnhdUCCnFZubCvQgNofQZ3wwZDa5y31CxVpz8A0lFr-RJjFOmAVLzqRz_oOlY1sA23IVloa9nrrK0-iavBZ0LT-T9kxHrgaVkEr4ETmkPIvMZ2_4k/s1462/descent_2023%20Dreweatts%20auction%20-%202.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1462" data-original-width="1255" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgEgnLh1lYU2y53SA4rcAEtaHfpclNy7ETgoXM6CDXhAIjR2JBQdnGp_SV9AUZB99KvVhUJe01d2OnhdUCCnFZubCvQgNofQZ3wwZDa5y31CxVpz8A0lFr-RJjFOmAVLzqRz_oOlY1sA23IVloa9nrrK0-iavBZ0LT-T9kxHrgaVkEr4ETmkPIvMZ2_4k/w367-h427/descent_2023%20Dreweatts%20auction%20-%202.jpeg" width="367" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Ricketts, 'Descent from the Cross', <i>c</i>. 1909</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Various stages of the passion of Christ were painted by Ricketts, such as the trial ('Christ before the People', </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">c</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">. 1906) and the crucifixion ('Calvary, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">c</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">. 1907, and 'The Crucifixion', undated), but mostly he painted the 'Descent from the Cross'. There are at least five, perhaps even seven or eight.</span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;">1. 'Descent from the Cross', <i>c</i>. 1905: The William Morris Gallery,<br />2. 'The Deposition', <i>c</i>. 1910: Ashmolean Museum,<br />3. 'The Deposition', also called 'The Descent from the Cross', <i>c</i>. 1909,<br />4. 'The Deposition', <i>c</i>. 1915: Bradford Art Galleries and Museums,<br />5. 'Deposition from the Cross', <i>c</i>. 1915: The Tate.</span><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Christ is one of Ricketts's tragic heroes, others he frequently depicted are Don Juan, Faust, The Good Samaritan, and Montezuma, an intimate circle of admired dead, a curious group of historical and fictional characters.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The third painting from my short list is now on sale at Dreweatts: oil on canvas, 92 x 71 cm, signed (verso), further signed (to stretcher verso). It probably dates from around 1909, as it was illustrated by C. Lewis Hind in 'Charles Ricketts: a Commentary on his Activities', <i>The Studio</i>, January 1910. In 1933, T.S. Moore reproduced the painting, stating that the then owner was unknown. It surfaced in 2014, when it was sold by Stockholm Auktionsverk. <i>Fine Arts and Antiques</i>, on 11 June 2014, lot no. 3388. It fetched around $11,500.</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEHx5o-rrPQysgjCAn2wKwCdfVnU3wYy_pPZHPQWLdgi0gmo_n2oPgvjcGWpc8vylJDzPcXJZKIRCd_YYuhTDPk9hT875lSWw2vWzax2BF8ANqEa61KLqO8AmImwfvfTJcvTjyzOGhuKn277yq_0sp0_7KwENSEbuBcqxvpbwVUy_pzy-kjasKQPXnnd0/s1405/descent_2023auction%20-%203.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1405" data-original-width="1205" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEHx5o-rrPQysgjCAn2wKwCdfVnU3wYy_pPZHPQWLdgi0gmo_n2oPgvjcGWpc8vylJDzPcXJZKIRCd_YYuhTDPk9hT875lSWw2vWzax2BF8ANqEa61KLqO8AmImwfvfTJcvTjyzOGhuKn277yq_0sp0_7KwENSEbuBcqxvpbwVUy_pzy-kjasKQPXnnd0/w387-h452/descent_2023auction%20-%203.jpeg" width="387" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Ricketts, 'Descent from the Cross', <i>c</i>. 1909</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Opening bid is </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">£</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">4,500, estimate </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">£</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">5,000 - </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">£</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">7,000.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-29921234245539280202023-10-04T00:30:00.117+02:002023-10-05T13:12:07.257+02:00635. The Matsukata Collection Revisited<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 2018, I wrote about some paintings by Ricketts and Shannon that had been bought by Japanese businessman <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Djir%C5%8D_Matsukata">Kojiro Matsukata</a> (1865-1950) and were lost in a fire in London in 1939. Part of his vast collection ended up in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Museum_of_Western_Art">National Museum of Western Art</a> in Tokyo. I wrote: 'In the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artists_represented_in_the_National_Museum_of_Western_Art,_Tokyo">list of artists represented in this museum</a>, the names of Ricketts and Shannon are absent.' However, in 2019 an exhibition by the museum included two works by Ricketts and Shannon, and the museum's website now lists their names. (See the <a href="https://collection.nmwa.go.jp/artizewebeng/search_2_artist.php?artist_initial=S" target="_blank">Collection page of the National Museum of Western Art</a>). </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9JaIe5rJ_0lpqshMmyN-VGU72MBfuAPzneCl2AUum3Ar0GItFQd3jL-c0m08bJT7LSuj9S8MXuMlfPerFHbNFlbHhjnbO_SGbxinkJp9d8FCY2iKRmLoc-eHo9JviqvLpwbW754BmDvsk1YouIh8lBCRogD7bCBPZUnSZh5ulNsHRmxfh1GPEnrlh28Y/s1000/NMWA%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="1000" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9JaIe5rJ_0lpqshMmyN-VGU72MBfuAPzneCl2AUum3Ar0GItFQd3jL-c0m08bJT7LSuj9S8MXuMlfPerFHbNFlbHhjnbO_SGbxinkJp9d8FCY2iKRmLoc-eHo9JviqvLpwbW754BmDvsk1YouIh8lBCRogD7bCBPZUnSZh5ulNsHRmxfh1GPEnrlh28Y/w420-h209/NMWA%20-%201.jpeg" width="420" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">These works had been on quite a journey. Matsukata began collecting art in 1916 during lengthy business trips around Europe. Works of art were shipped to Japan, but much was stored locally in England and France. From the mid-1920s, Japan was hit by recession and then a financial crisis that also affected the banks with which Matsukata's firm did business. Additional works were brought to Japan from Paris to be sold - with the artworks already in place - in a series of auctions whose proceeds were to save the company.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Japan raised the tax on luxury goods imports to 100 per cent, further complicating the shipping of his collection to his homeland. While the London collection was lost in a fire, the French collection was stored, even during World War II, with some sales to cover costs. After the war this part of Matsukata's collection was confiscated by the French state because of the nationality of its owner. Eventually 375 artworks were to be returned to Japan, but by then the collector had died.</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv2lzdxP1q2n-vR4Y39-37ys5f4Zl6MgwHersf-m_2R9cT70Y2ho1WJmQaHGoFV1p9rLsIWlLFfyLPjAgn8ahBWc_fjBBfy1pFIAKpYcG7MR3dfYYEv-Li7AthDoLt2AwF5aBbNLW_Ex9rhoZRUr0qTigIfLNS8JkOGpvCAMWgCoW9u-VUhNhjfjLLxps/s1324/Shannon_Rebirth%20of%20the%20Arts%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1324" data-original-width="885" height="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv2lzdxP1q2n-vR4Y39-37ys5f4Zl6MgwHersf-m_2R9cT70Y2ho1WJmQaHGoFV1p9rLsIWlLFfyLPjAgn8ahBWc_fjBBfy1pFIAKpYcG7MR3dfYYEv-Li7AthDoLt2AwF5aBbNLW_Ex9rhoZRUr0qTigIfLNS8JkOGpvCAMWgCoW9u-VUhNhjfjLLxps/w329-h492/Shannon_Rebirth%20of%20the%20Arts%20-%201.jpeg" width="329" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Charles Shannon, 'The Rebirth of the Arts' (1917)<br />[The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo]</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Two lithographic posters by Ricketts and Shannon are now in the collection. They both made a nomadic journey. One of Matsukata's first purchases was the complete series of lithographs published during the war: <i>The Great War. Britain's Efforts and Ideals</i>. Ricketts's poster was called 'Italia Redenta' and Shannon's was titled 'The Rebirth of the Arts' (1917). The colour lithographs measured 77,9 x 52,2 cm (Ricketts) and 77,3 x 51,6 cm (Shannon). [For reproductions, see <a href="https://charlesricketts.blogspot.com/2014/09/165-great-war-exhibition-in-wales.html" target="_blank">blog 165. The Great War, an Exhibition in Wales</a>.]</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Matsukata bought the complete series of 66 items. It was purchased at the Fine Art Society, London in July 1917. They were transported to the Kawasaki Dockyard Co., Ltd. in Kobe. In 1927 they were seized by Jugo Bank, Tokyo, to be sold in the fourth Matsukata sale in Tokyo from 7–24 May 1931. They became part of a private collection in Japan, and were deposited many years later in the <span style="text-align: center;">The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, on </span>25 January 2016. A year later they were purchased by the museum.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3131659639326151375.post-55904806138349560622023-09-27T00:30:00.062+02:002023-09-27T00:41:26.749+02:00634. Ricketts and Shannon as Puppets<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Helen Richie wrote a fascinating blog earlier this year about the Ricketts and Shannon collection bequeathed to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. (Read <a href="https://charlesricketts.blogspot.com/2023/02/600-art-collection-of-ricketts-and.html" target="_blank">The Art Collection of Ricketts and Shannon</a>.) One of the issues she dealt with was the attribution of the estate to Shannon instead of Shannon and Ricketts, caused by Shannon dying last. Thomas Sturge Moore wrote a letter to the museum's director to have it corrected, but that only partly happened. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 2019, a video was dedicated to the issue. Created by Jasmine Brady, Ana Dias, Bruna Fernandes and Lucian Stephenson, the animation reimagines a portrait by Edmund Dulac of Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon. Dulac depicted the pair as medieval saints. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">In this Museum Remix some elements have been changed. See <a href="https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/magic/letter-director-fitzwilliam-museum" target="_blank">Letter to the Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum</a>. (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zixnfvaJseg&t=6s" target="_blank">Also on YouTube</a>).</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhip9BQ2nR_pgkh_E7kCnE6E7MpsYzcse55f1bZQ5JBfauF7sgVypfTcIAEwZ0cRPoFqPwJwgRG-woaiaV7DZBPNT47XHc0zIizrBGVs0Rrr_3fT_bblslI_wQPkwCvyzxKq7mRRCsYCJeOeYa8EId_4y_jxL5HGfMqdTXmlENvVRzTIcn3jW35DgzmPs0/s1591/DulacRemix%20-%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1591" data-original-width="903" height="634" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhip9BQ2nR_pgkh_E7kCnE6E7MpsYzcse55f1bZQ5JBfauF7sgVypfTcIAEwZ0cRPoFqPwJwgRG-woaiaV7DZBPNT47XHc0zIizrBGVs0Rrr_3fT_bblslI_wQPkwCvyzxKq7mRRCsYCJeOeYa8EId_4y_jxL5HGfMqdTXmlENvVRzTIcn3jW35DgzmPs0/w361-h634/DulacRemix%20-%201.jpeg" width="361" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;">Jasmine Brady, Ana Dias, Bruna Fernandes, Lucian Stephenson,<br />Museum Remix participants: <br /><span style="text-align: start;">Letter to the Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">At the start, the Dulac image is imitated; and, after thirty seconds approximately, Ricketts and Shannon hold in their hands some of their Greek treasures, a cup and a statuette. Animals, such as a hare on the ground and a bat in the sky, are taken directly from Dulac. Their faces are replaced by masks with newly drawn portraits and they are depicted as puppets with moving limbs and heads. As Moore's letter and the director's reply are read out, the couple's posture changes and at the end - instead of their art treasures - they hold each other's hands.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com