100. Francis Ernest Jackson and the Ricketts Legacy

To celebrate the hundredth contribution for 'Charles Ricketts & Charles Shannon', J.G. Paul Delaney wrote a guest blog about their friend Francis Ernest Jackson:

Francis Ernest Jackson

Among Ricketts’s closest friends in his later years was the artist F. Ernest Jackson (1872-1945). It was in some ways the attraction of opposites. As opposed to the aesthetic Ricketts, with his passionate collecting and his extravagant purchases of flowers to decorate his house, Jackson was a down-to-earth Yorkshireman, who was very sensible and could be a bit gruff. However, they shared important values. Ricketts had been partly brought up in France and had an attitude to art that was more European than British, while Jackson had trained in Paris, could speak excellent French and remained a strong Francophile all his life. In France, he had come to see lithography as more than a reproductive medium, and, as both artist and teacher, he had become a founder of the revival of artistic lithography in England. Indeed, it was through lithography that he met Shannon, who was also involved in reviving this medium, and thus came into the Ricketts and Shannon circle.

Charles Shannon teaching at the Byam Shaw. Students left to right: Richard Finny, winner of the Prix de Rome, Stephanie Cooper, Nancy Brockman, CHS, Unidentified, Francis Cooper

More importantly, Jackson, who was professor of drawing at the Royal Academy Schools, was considered by many to be the finest draughtsman, and the best teacher of drawing of the human form, of his generation. He was a strong supporter of the Classical Tradition in art. Despite his years in France, he had not been ‘tainted’ by modern movements in Art, like Post-Impressionism, that Ricketts so detested. What’s more, Jackson was a competent administrator, and in 1926 became Director of the Byam Shaw School of Art, which under his leadership became one of the leading art schools of its time in Britain, producing between 1926 and 1945 two winners of the Prix de Rome and two runners-up for this prestigious scholarship as well as a winner of the Abbey Scholarship. 

Jackson teaching at the Byam Shaw

No doubt it was this competence as an administrator that led Ricketts to name Jackson one of his executors. This role had always unofficially belonged to Thomas Sturge Moore, one of Ricketts’s oldest friends and disciples. However, with the years Sturge Moore had become rather vague and muddled, and with Shannon having suffered brain damage in his fall from a ladder in 1929, the estate needed someone who was efficient and strong-minded. His choice proved to be right, as in administering Ricketts’s estate, Jackson did his best to do what Ricketts would have wanted, in both preserving his and Shannon’s collection as much as possible, while at the same time selling some things to make sure that Shannon received the best care possible. In doing this, he had to put up a great deal of interference both from Sturge Moore and from the Master in Lunacy, who had legally become involved in Shannon’s care, but who knew nothing of Ricketts and Shannon and their values.

F. Ernest Jackson

In the years after Ricketts’s death, the Byam Shaw School under Jackson’s direction, remained one of the few places in London where the names of Ricketts and Shannon were still revered. Shannon had taught there for a time, and Ricketts had made a practice of having a weekly lunch with Jackson. Jackson often spoke of them to the students, some of whom like Brian Thomas, winner of the Prix de Rome, and George Warner Allen, became devoted to Ricketts and Shannon and to the artistic values that they represented. Jackson gave each of them a postcard that he had received from Ricketts. Warner Allen, who knew whole sections of Ricketts’s books on the Prado and on Titian by heart, continued to paint in the manner of Titian, while Thomas, who realized that there was no money in such painting, became a leading decorative artist for churches and older buildings, one area where the classical tradition still survived. Thus it was partly through Jackson that Ricketts and Shannon were able to pass on their artistic values, however unpopular and old-fashioned they seemed to the artists of the modern movement, to the new generation.

      J.G. Paul Delaney

99. Charles Shannon on Wikipedia

Charles Shannon's entry on Wikipedia was created in 2005, a year later than that for Ricketts. It contains one image, his self-portrait from the National Portrait Gallery.

Shannon's biography is captured in a single paragraph that mentions his education, the meeting with Ricketts, his paintings, and lithographs, as well as museum collections that hold works by Shannon. His book designs for Oscar Wilde (A House of Pomegranates), his binding designs for Wilde's plays, nor his collaboration on pre-Vale Press books with Ricketts are mentioned. The entry lists references, bibliographies, and external links.

Charles Shannon's self-portrait from the collection of the National Portrait Gallery (souce: Wikicommons)

There are no links to entries in other languages.

The world according to Wikipedia... This lemma indicates that the Wikipedians who worked on it, have an interest in his lithographs, and paintings, but not in other aspects of his art and life, and that all are from the English-speaking countries.

98. Charles Ricketts on Wikipedia

Charles Ricketts has had a lemma on the English version of Wikipedia since 14 October 2004. It was started by wikipedian Charles Matthews, and the lemma underwent modifications by others in the following years. The opening line of the entry in the online encyclopedia now reads:

Charles de Sousy Ricketts (2 October 1866 - 7 October 1931) was a versatile English artist, illustrator, author and printer, and is best known for his work as book designer and typographer from 1896 to 1904 with the Vale Press, and his work in the theatre as a set and costume designer.

The section 'Life and career' has three sentences on his birth and education, then quotes William Rothenstein's memoirs on his looks and mind, and mentions his initial meeting with Charles Shannon.

Charles Ricketts, design for Mikado: one of the illustrations on Wikipedia Commons

The next paragraph is about the Vale Press and Ricketts's artistic career, starting with The Dial and his illustrations for a book by Wilde (The Sphinx, although the title is not given). About the Vale Press Wikipedia writes: 

It was in the work of the Vale Press that Ricketts would find his talents were best employed. The enterprise also involved Thomas Sturge Moore, and later William Llewellyn Hacon (1860-1910), a barrister.

I do not see how the word 'later' in this paragraph can be correct.

The entry mentions facts about the printer of the books and the number of editions that were issued by the Vale Press, and it states that Ricketts was 'involved' in Pissarro's Eragny Press, which is rather vague. 

The paragraph briefly summarizes his career as a painter, and as an art critic. The last paragraph lists a number of his designs for the theatre, and mentions a play about Ricketts and Shannon by Michael MacLennan (2003).

Then follows an incomplete list of 'works', followed by footnotes, references and external links (this blog is not included).

The entry has four images, and links to entries in other languages: French, Italian, Polish and Spanish. Three of these seem to be copies of the English original, and all are shorter. The Spanish entry originates from 2011. It contains one image, and has paragraphs on his life, artistic career, and theatre designs. The Polish entry is extremely short and dates from 2008. The Italian version (with two of the images) is slightly longer, dates from the same year, and ignores his career as a book designer. The French version is not a copy of the others, and digests his career as an artist and art collector. It also mentions Shannon's accident in 1928, and Ricketts's death.

There is no lemma about the Vale Press on Wikipedia in English. However, an entry in French exists, as well as one in German, both without pictures. There is no German entry for Ricketts. A link from the English Ricketts entry to the German Vale Press lemma was removed.

The amazing world of Wikipedia...

97. "Pen and ink drawings in my earliest manner"

I received an inquiry about Charles Ricketts's illustrations for Oscar Wilde's poems in prose. The question came down to: were these illustrations ever published, and where are they located?

Wilde's Poems in Prose include 'The House of Judgment', 'The Disciple', 'The Artist', 'The Doer of Good', 'The Master', and 'The Teacher of Wisdom'. As a group, they were published by the author in The Fortnightly Review, July 1894.

Oscar Wilde, 'The Disciple', in Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Prose Pieces (London, Methuen and Co., 1908, p. 206-207)

It seems that Ricketts planned a series of drawings for an illustrated edition shortly afterwards. They were stored away and found, in 1918, in 'a batch of old Vale scraps, tracings and drawings, published and unpublished', as Ricketts wrote to his friend Gordon Bottomley (27 July 1918). The drawings were among those for the first issue of The Dial (1889), for Daphnis and Chloe and The Sphinx.

In 1924 Ricketts produced a new series of drawings (letter to Bottomley, 13 June 1924): 'Recently I executed eight drawings in my old manner illustrating Wilde's Poems in Prose'. This was suggested to him by his American dealer Martin Birnbaum. He also produced a new set of drawings for The Sphinx. As Paul Delaney wrote: 'Both sets were sold by Birnbaum in America, but when one of the Poems in Prose was eventually returned Bottomley snapped it up, as well as some of the first sketches for The Sphinx designs.'

The 1924 illustrations were sold by Birnbaum to American collectors and, to my knowledge, they have not been recorded since. (See note.)

Thomas Sturge Moore argued that 'only the preparations remain with us. In them, lyrical felicity is replaced by grander conceptions and a line richer in suggestion: the artist had matured.' This series of sketches is now in the Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery in Carlisle. They are collected in an album that was purchased by Bottomley at Sotheby's in 1938. He bequeathed it to Professor Claude Colleer Abbott, his literary executor, who in turn left it to Tullie House in 1971. A catalogue of the Ricketts items in the Bottomley collection was published by Michael Barclay in 1985.

Oscar Wilde, 'The Teacher of Wisdom', in: Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde (London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1914, p. 128-129)

Jeremiah Romano Mercurio, in his recent essay about two of the remaining sketches, wrote that Ricketts did 'nine pen-and-ink illustrations - one for each of the six prose poems Wilde published, with two designs and three drawings for 'The Doer of Good' and an additional sketch of three dancing figures, which might have been intended to serve as a frontispiece'. He noted that the illustrations have not yet been published as a set.

The sketches for Poems in Prose (c. 1924):
1. 'The House of Judgment'.
Reproductions: Moore, 1933, plate XXXVII; Calloway, 1979, p. 90; Barclay, 1985, p. [46]; Mercurio, 2011, p. 14 (in colour). 
Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 15 in Album.
2. 'The Disciple'.
Reproductions: Barclay, 1985, p. [44]; Mercurio, 2011, p. 10 (in colour). 

Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 14 in Album.

3a. 'The Artist'.

Reproductions: -.

Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 9 in Album.

3b. 'The Artist'. (Another version, framed). 

Reproductions: -.

Bibliography: cf. Barclay, 1985, p. 43, No. 2: 'one framed': Acc. No. 125-1949-341 (not in Album).  

4a. 'The Doer of Good' (a standing figure, two figures on a couch).

Reproductions: -.

Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 18 in Album.

4b. 'The Doer of Good'. Preparatory sketch.

Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 17 in Album. 

4c. 'The Doer of Good'. Second design (a standing figure of Christ, a kneeling figure in front, two angels in the top corner)

Reproductions: -.

Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 12 in Album.

5. 'The Master'.

Reproductions: -.

Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 13 in Album.

6. 'The Teacher of Wisdom'. 
Reproductions: Peppin, 1975, p. 51; Darracott, 1980, p. 30; Barclay, 1985, p. [42].
Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 16 in Album.7. Sketch of three dancing figures.

Reproductions: -.

Bibliography: Barclay, 1985, p. 65: No. 10 in Album.

References

Michael Richard Barclay: Catalogue of the Works of Charles Ricketts, R.A. from the Collection of Gordon Bottomley. Stroud, Glos, Catalpa Press Ltd., 1985; Stephen Calloway: Charles Ricketts. Subtle and fantastic decorator. London, Thames and Hudson, 1979; Joseph Darracott: The World of Charles Ricketts. London, Eyre Methuen, 1980; Jeremiah Mercurio, 'Charles Ricketts' illustrations for Oscar Wilde's Poems in prose: an unrealized project', in: Victorian Network, vol. 3 (2011) No. 1 (Summer), p. 3-21; Charles Ricketts, R.A. Sixty-Five Illustrations. Introduced by T. Sturge Moore. London, Toronto, Melbourne & Sidney, Cassell & Company Limited, 1933.

Note, 2023

Three drawings from the 1924 set have been traced since this blog was written. 

96. The Laurence Hodson sale

Bloomsbury in London offered in auction the collection of books of Laurence W. Hodson (1863-1933), a wealthy West Midlands brewery owner, collector and philanthropist. He was a friend, patron and admirer of William Morris, and commissioned many works to refurbish his family home, Compton Hall, in 1895. A founder of Birmingham University, he also was chairman of the Wolverhampton Art and Industrial Exhibition (1902), where works of Ricketts and Shannon were on view alongside other works of art. 

His collection of interior designs was auctioned in February. The April sale included works of the Kelmscott and Vale Presses.

Binding by Charles Ricketts for Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese (Vale Press, 1897)

Now that the sale is over, it is time to summarize the results, and the contents of the collection. There were early works by Ricketts and Shannon (The Dial, A House of Pomegranates, and the early Vale Press related Daphnis and Chloe and Hero and Leander), autograph letters by Ricketts and Shannon, and a series of fifteen lithographs by the latter.

The Vale Press books were described in lot 88 to 157, including both a vellum and a paper copy of many titles. There were 29 volumes printed on vellum, of which twenty-one copies were bound in leather after a special design by Ricketts. Eleven of these were bound in red leather, and ten in green. Seven volumes were bound, as issued, in white vellum. There were 86 volumes printed on paper. Of these, only two were specially bound after a design by Ricketts, both in white pigskin: a copy of John Suckling's Poems (1896) and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets (1907). 

Opening the Vale Press book case, Hodson's first impression was more colourful (red, green, white) than that of most Vale Press collectors.

For the bindings of the vellum copies Ricketts started with red leather, but between 1899 and 1902 Hodson received copies in green leather. From that time on he settled for the original vellum bindings that were provided by the Vale Press for all vellum copies. The specially designed copies have the HR monogram (for Hacon and Ricketts) on the inside upper or lower cover. Most of these also feature the LH monogram of the collector on the upper cover. 

Monogram LH for Laurence Hodson (on a binding designed by Charles Ricketts)

A later binding, in green, has another monogram, with large, intertwined initials, designed by Ricketts.

Monogram LHO for Laurence Hodson (on a binding designed by Charles Ricketts)

Most specially commissioned bindings show the rectangular designs that we know of Ricketts, but included in the sale were two exceptional designs. One, for Dante Gabriel Rossetti's The Blessed Damozel, had a pattern of barley, cornflower, and leaves.

Charles Ricketts, binding (detail) for a vellum copy of The Blessed Damozel (Vale Press, 1898)

Another binding had a pattern of the LH monogram and an image of a bird and a leaf. This was executed in gold on a green leather binding for a vellum copy of Cellini's autobiography in two volumes.

Charles Ricketts, binding (detail) for a vellum copy of The Life of Benvenuto Cellini (Vale Press, 1900)

The results for the vellum copies and for the special bindings were, as could probably be expected, with prices between £2000 and £11,000. The highest price was paid for the two volume set of Keats's poems. The Rossetti went for £8,500, as did the Cellini edition. Remarkably, the Tennyson set of two volumes - In Memoriam and Lyric Poems, both issued in 1900 - were separated over two lots (128 and 130), and while the first one was sold for £2,000, the second one remained unsold at auction. However, both volumes have now been offered for sale by Blackwell Rare Books (for £9,500).

A vellum copy, in a special green binding, of The Rubayat of Omar Khayyam (1901) contained a preparatory ink drawing for the binding design, and some rubbings of the tools: the monogram and bird/leaf image. This book, and many others, were shown by Hodson in the Wolverhampton Exhibition of 1902.

The ordinary paper copies, were sold for lower prices, between £140 and £500. Fourteen lots remained unsold. 

An exceptional collection was thus dispersed - one hundred years after the collector had amassed it. The Vale Press books alone fetched the amount of £93,680.

95. The bookplate for Gleeson White

The letters of John Gray to Félix Fénéon, which I reviewed last week (blog 94: A French correspondence), contain an interesting revelation about the bookplate that Ricketts designed for Gleeson White.

Gleeson White was born as Joseph William White in 1851, but he dropped his first names (they were identical to his father's) and added his mother's maiden name Gleeson. He moved from England to New York, where he edited the Art Amateur (1891-1892), then returned to London where he founded the journal The Studio (1893), which he also edited for about a year. He edited other journals as well (The Pageant, for example, for which Charles Shannon was the art editor). He died, after contracting typhoid fever, in 1898, at the age of 47.

In 1893 he published Practical Designing. A Handbook on the Preparation of Working Drawings. In it he reproduced a drawing by Ricketts, reproduced twice from the same process block. 

Charles Ricketts, 'Two blocks from the same original', in:  Practical Designing (1893, p. [180])

The drawing was reproduced in photo-lithography, and Gleeson White used the difference in the technical execution as an example of reduction in size of illustrations: 'The two blocks [...] show that the drawing must not always be held responsible for failure; as the first was reproduced by the same makers as the second'. The second one was 'a fairly accurate reduction keeping the correct colour and effect', while in the first one the whole image had become greyer.

The complicated design of 'Igdrasil', the tree of life, was used by Gleeson White as a bookplate, and he had two different sizes of it. Both sizes seem to have been printed, not from the original block, but from a process-block. But the version that was used by White differed from the one that he illustrated in Practical Designing.

Charles Ricketts, 'Ex Libris Gleeson White' 

Interestingly, the bookplate has a line to that effect with the typical lettering of Ricketts, see for example the dot on the 'i' in White's name, which resembles an eye. The flower between 'Ex Libris' and the name is reminiscent of Ricketts's design for Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). The 'Ex Libris' line is lacking in the reproduction in Gleeson White's book of 1893.

There are two other remarkable differences. Firstly, the bookplate has no date, while the process-block illustration has a date in roman numerals: 1890. Secondly, the name 'Igdrasil' in the bookplate has been written in Ricketts's script, with a reversed 'd' and 'r', a typical mistake for a woodcutter. The same mistake was made in Ricketts's monogram, which is also in reverse.  For the reproduction in Practical Designing the monogram was still mirrored, but the title 'Igdrasil' had been rewritten, probably by the engraver of the process block. 

Gleeson White did not write that it was a bookplate, and some have argued that the image had originally been designed for the cover of the magazine Igdrasil, that was announced by the Magazine of Art, in June 1890, as the new magazine of the Ruskin Reading Guild. Had Ricketts been invited to design a cover for this? Perhaps, but the suggestion that he adapted the design for White's bookplate a few years later is now contradicted by a letter of John Gray. 

At the time, there was some confusion, and, indeed, the notion of a magazine was apparently diffused by Ricketts himself: 'Mr. Ricketts has chosen to lend me, as representative of his work, this design of his for the cover of Igdrasil', wrote Charles Harper in English Pen Artists of To-Day (1892). Harper's version of the image has no 'Ex Libris' line, but has the original Ricketts title of Igdrasil with the reversed 'd' and 'r'. It also lacks the date.

Charles Ricketts, 'Book-plate of Gleeson White', in: Egerton Castle, English Book-Plates (1892, p. 170)

Harper's book was published in February 1892. There is one other reproduction of the bookplate in the same year, in a book that Egerton Castle published in December 1892:  English Book-Plates. Castle quoted Ricketts's explanation of the bookplate's symbols, and also printed White's own comment. Castle introduced the image as 'the extraordinary-looking design made by Mr. Charles Ricketts for Mr. Gleeson White'. This reproduction has both the 'Ex Libris' line and the roman date. And it has the rewritten title 'Igdrasil' (not in Ricketts's hand). This version was also reproduced in Walter Hamilton's Dated Book-Plates of 1895. Curiously, the books about bookplates did not use the original block of the actual bookplate by Ricketts, but a later version. Several questions remain unanswered: who rewrote the title, who added the date? Perhaps, White used the original drawing for the reproduction, and not the printed specimen. The drawing may have been dated. However, it does not explain why the title was tampered with. 

Harper and, later, Walter von Zur Westen (in his book Exlibris (Bucheignerzeichen), published in 1901) faithfully reproduced Ricketts's bookplate as it was done for White, including the 'Ex Libris' line, omitting the year, and having the title in Ricketts's characteristic script.

Apart from the confusion over the reproductions, the changed title and the omission of the year, there is the question of dating the design. It was first published in 1892, as we have seen, by Castle and Harper. The Castle reproduction has the date 'mdcccxc' and this suggests that the design was done in 1890. The Harper reproduction has no date. This dating problem is related to the question of the original purpose of the design: was it a bookplate or a cover design. Maureen Watry (The Vale Press, 2004, p. 57) supposed that 'at some point during 1892 Ricketts's design, with the addition of his hand-drawn lettering, was adopted by White for use as a bookplate'.

But, perhaps, Ricketts was simply mistaken, when he told Harper that the design was done for the magazine Igdrasil. Two years had passed since he designed it, and these were very busy years filled with successful assignments, but also with abandoned projects. On the other hand, it could have been Harper who was mistaken, and simply assumed that Ricketts had designed it for this magazine.

From the correspondence of Gray and Fénéon we now know that, originally, in 1890, the design was done as a bookplate for Gleeson White. Gray wrote a first letter on 22 October 1890, enclosing a lithograph by Shannon and 'Deux bois de Ricketts le plus grand une enseigne (?) de livre le petit pour le papier lettre': a bookplate and a letterhead. The smaller one was also a bookplate. That Gray was talking about 'Igdrasil' became clear in a second letter of 20 November 1890. He wrote that the mystifying subject of the image originated from Nordic sagas, and that it was designed to ornate the books of Gleeson White: 'Il est destiné à orner les livres dans la collection d'un nommé Gleeson White, je suppose qu'on a cet habitude en France aussi'. 

Then follows a long and detailed description of the image, done by heart:

A la partie inferieure le Chaos, tournant et s'agitant, ou l'on voit des cristaux, et des pierres durs dans ces volutes, à droite et à gauche le nuit et le jour, deux frères sous la même couverture. Du Chaos se leve l'arbre de vie avec ses branches fructifiants de toutes les formes de la vie animale et végétale des corails, des cactés, des porcs-épics etc; - je ne garde pas très justement le souvenir. Du coeur de chaos toute la longue de l'arbre monte une flamme dans lequel on trouve l'homme né dans cette flamme le suprême animal, végétable si vous voulez je n'en sais pas trop quelque part au milieu du dessin un arc-en-ciel. Voilà que je vous fatique de ce pénible inventaire.'

Ricketts's own description (quoted by Castle) reads as follows:

The tree of Creation (Igdrasil) [...] springs from a swirl of water and flame which breaks into little gems; the flame, continuing, flows through the trunk of the tree, which branches on each side into composite boughs suggesting the different plant kingdoms. This central flame envelopes the figure of man, placed in the mids of the tree in the action of awakening. The fruit on the eastern end of each bough represent in embryo the fish and water fowl, the reptile and creeping insects, the larger animals, and finally the creatures with wings. The rainbow shooting through the centre composition signifies the atmosphere; the two figures under one cloak in the lower part of the design represent night and day, i.e. the planets.

Castle doubted the relevance of the symbolism in a bookplate, but he also quoted Gleeson White, who reassured him that Igdrasil 'has always been a favourite symbol for Literature'.

Comparing the two descriptions, of Gray in 1890, and of Ricketts in 1892, we have to conclude that Gray had had a thorough look at the bookplate that he send on to his new friend in France. More importantly, his letter decides the debate about a possible other purpose for the design. From the start, it had been intended as a bookplate for Gleeson White.

[Revised, 30 January 2022.]

94. A French correspondence

The French publisher Du Lérot, éditeur, in Tusson, Charante, has published the letters of Félix Fénéon and John Gray in a small edition of 200 copies. The book, edited by Maurice Imbert and printed in 2010, reproduces on the cover a sketch by Gray of two students of the Scots College in Rome.

Cover of Félix Fénéon & John Gray, Correspondance (2010)

Félix Fénéon (1861-1941) was one of the early French contacts of John Gray, who approached him in the summer of 1890. Fénéon was 29 at the time, Gray only 24. However, Gray had already published an essay and a story in Ricketts and Shannon's journal The Dial in 1889, and he was about to publish a poem and an obituary during the following two months. Fénéon wrote about Gray to Francis Viélé-Griffin (1864-1937), editor of Les Entretiens Politiqies et Littéraires, and Gray was invited to contribute articles for the magazine. However, illness prevented his writing any pieces for it. 

Ricketts was also asked to contribute some of the woodcuts he had published in the first issue of The Dial, and he promised to do special drawings for Les Entretiens, but nothing came of this. Gray and Fénéon stayed in contact until 1913 (at least). Their letters have been kept in the John Rylands Library in Manchester (Fénéon's part of the correspondence) and in the Jean Paulhan foundation at IMEC (the letters by Gray), and are here published in full for the first time. Included are two pieces that Gray wrote for Fénéon's Revue Blanche, published in June 1897 and May 1898: a story and an obituary of Aubrey Beardsley (an English translation of the latter was edited by the Tragara Press in 1980).

Ricketts and Shannon were a lot on the mind of Gray in these years, who considered himself part of the 'Valistes', a name they invented to imitate the feeling of a school of artists that could rival with the modern movements in France. Gray suggested (16 April 1891) that the name was some sort of a joke, but he was dead serious about his future prospects as a writer, as we have seen. He tried to get published in France and in Holland, and he used his French contacts for a better knowledge of modern French poetry. He would become one of the earliest translators of Verlaine and Rimbaud in England.

Félix Fénéon

We know nothing about the young John Gray and the way he met the artists Ricketts and Shannon, and although these early letters do not reveal that much about their collaboration, their publication is a welcome addition to the Gray library. It still is an enigma how Ricketts and Shannon met John Gray, who quickly teamed up with them and Reginald Savage to write the texts for the first issue of The Dial. They must have been very fond of him. When the editor of the correspondence maintains that John Gray was 'le co-fondateur' of The Dial, we have to say that this is highly unlikely, and, certainly, there is no proof for it. The only named publisher of that first issue was Charles Shannon, while the editors were Shannon and Ricketts. It is a slip of the pen that I, perhaps, should not have mentioned, as I am pleased to see these letters of Fénéon and Gray in print. Price: €25.

93. Did not sleep last night

During the First World War Charles Ricketts was, as we have seen in blog number 89 (A costume correspondence), engaged in charity activities, and he wrote letters and post cards to several friends who were in the trenches in Flanders or France. His diary frequently mentions or describes disturbing events, such as air raids on London, or casualties at the front, or elsewhere.

His diary note for May 8, 1915, reads:

Did not sleep last night, thinking of Lusitania and poor Lane, who, to-day, is among the missing. Have been depressed and disturbed with burst of anger - near to tears at the thought of the danger to Venice. How will the world be able to look itself in the face when the war ends?

The New York Times reported the fate of the Lusitania

The Lusitania had sunk the day before in the waters of the Irish channel. A U-boat had fired torpedos, and there were two explosions noted by the captain before the ship went down in about 20 minutes. Sir Hugh Lane - born in 1875 and knighted at 33 - was among the casualties. Lane was an art dealer and collector, whose collection of impressionist paintings is now, for the greater part, housed in the Dublin City Gallery. He grew up in England, but regularly visited the house of his aunt Lady Gregory in Ireland. 

The threat to Venice that Ricketts reported was related to the Treaty of London, which had been signed on 26 April 1915. Italy joined the side of Allied countries hoping to gain parts of the Austrian-Hungarian empire close to Northern Italy. At the Italian Front battles were fought between 1915 and 1918. Strategic bombings by the Empire were few, but Ricketts's fears were not unfounded, as two frescoes by Tiepolo in the Chiesa degli Scalzi were damaged by bombs. The remains are now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia.

Lane was 'a very old friend' of Ricketts and Shannon (as Ricketts wrote to Rik Roland Holst in June 1915), but the friendship had only started in 1904, when Shannon was invited by Lane to participate in an exhibition in St Louis, Missouri. The exhibition was cancelled, and Shannon's paintings went to the Guildhall in London for an exhibition of Irish artists, after he had been assured by family members that there was a drop of Irish blood in his veins. Ricketts had no Irish roots whatsoever. Lane brought them buyers for their paintings. 'The Parable of the Vineyard', a painting by Ricketts that he donated to the gallery that Lane was planning at the time, is now in the Dublin City Gallery.

Charles Ricketts, 'The Parable of the Vineyard', oil on canvas,  c. 1912 (Photo: © Dublin City Gallery)

On 13 May 1915 Ricketts wrote in his diary that he noticed that thoughts about Lane and his tragic death were slipping into the past. But a short while later, other events brought them back to the foreground, when he had to report 'sad deaths among young soldier friends', such as Cyril Holland, the eldest son of Oscar Wilde, 'who was charming', and who died on 9 May 1915.

92. With the back to the viewer

A letter from the American artist Edward Gorey to Peter F. Neumeyer in Floating Worlds (published by Pomegranate in San Francisco, 2011) reminded me of Ricketts. I came upon this passage:

[Thank you] for the Gerard ter Borch "Cavalier". It put me in mind of a slightly curious idea I had for a visual anthology in which all the subjects would have their backs to the viewer; I have several Japanese prints of poets, and at least one of a puppy in this position, and I'm sure a quite respectable book could be got together from all times and places. What it would all be in aid of is another question (p. 130)

Gerard ter Borch, 'Man on Horsback, seen from behind' (drawing, 1625) (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)

In Floating Worlds a picture of the painting in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts shows a man on horseback, seen from behind. A sketch for this painting is in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which after a long restoration project has recently reopened its doors to the public.

Ricketts's final illustration for Oscar Wilde's The Sphinx (1894) contains an unusual image of Christ. The original drawing for this illustration is in the Manchester City Galleries.

Charles Ricketts, 'Christ Crucified', original drawing (Manchester City Galleries)

Charles Ricketts, 'Christ Crucified', in Oscar Wilde, The Sphinx (1894)  (image from Connexions)

In Ricketts's image we see Christ crucified, but he has his back to the viewer, which is highly unusual. Although the crucifixion scene is surely one of the most depicted biblical scenes in the history of Western art, I haven't been able to find another image of it in this manner. Ricketts has stylized the scene, omitting the cross, so as to show the full back of Christ. The drawing illustrates the last lines of Wilde's poem:

Whose pallid burden, sick with pain, watches the world with wearied eyes,
And weeps for every soul that dies, and weeps for every soul in vain.

The Ricketts illustration could have been part of Edward Gorey's visual anthology.

91. Letters to Cecil French

The Houghton Library acquired a group of letters and postcards by Ricketts and Shannon to Cecil French. The library's blog posted this message on 5 April (my colleague Marja Smolenaars drew my attention to the Harvard blog):

Last month Houghton Library acquired a small group of letters and postcards from Charles Ricketts (1866-1931) & Charles Shannon (1863-1937) to the Irish artist and collector Cecil French (1879-1953). These letters were acquired with the Louis Appell Jr. Fund for British Civilization because they are full of current affairs, news and gossip in the world of British art. These letters are now Houghton Library MS Eng 1738.

Ricketts and Shannon were artists and designers and founders of the Vale Press, one of the English private presses inspired by William Morris’s Kelmscott Press; Shannon’s portrait of William Butler Yeats hangs in the Houghton Library Reading Room.

Charles Ricketts, letter to Cecil French, 1923 (MS Eng 1738, © Houghton Library, Harvard University)

Cecil French from Dublin was trained as an artist at the Royal Academy Schools in London, but after a few years he decided that as an artist he could not compete with his Renaissance examples, and he became an art collector. His collection of more than 150 paintings went to the British Museum, The William Morris Gallery, and other institutions.

Portrait of Cecil French by William Shackleton, 1923 (from  Beyond Burne-Jones, The Cecil French Bequest Gallery)

He wrote a few essays about Ricketts, Shannon and their circle. His article 'The wood-engravings of Charles Ricketts' was published in The Print Collector’s Quarterly in July 1927.

90. Twelve Woodcuts by Lucien Pissarro (again)

Last year Bassenge Buchauktionen in Berlin-Grunewald offered for sale a portfolio with eleven out of Twelve Woodcuts by Lucien Pissarro. This set remained unsold for the estimate of €5000; the aftersale price was reduced to €4000, but now it has a slightly higher estimate of €4500. The problem with this copy is its incompleteness; it lacks one of the more outstanding woodcuts by Pissarro, namely 'Le tennis'.

My blog 64 Twelve (no: eleven) woodcuts traced the provenance of this set to a Dutch collection.

Lucien Pissarro, 'Floréal', woodcut from Twelve Woodcuts (1893)

Although incomplete, it is still a rarity, as the publishers - Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon - issued only twelve sets of the engravings. This copy will be auctioned on 20 April  and has been described as lot number 3581 in the catalogue, Moderne Literatur & Kunstdokumentation (which includes lots 3001 to 3859).

Note (23 April 2013): the lot has been sold for €3.500.

89. A Costume Correspondence

In a recent issue of Theatre Design & Technology (volume 49, Number 1, winter 2013), Margaret Mitchell published an article on 'A costume correspondence. The theatrical war effort of Charles Ricketts'. The text is available online on the Willard F. Bellman Digital Archives of TD&T. 

Margaret Mitchell is a costume and scenic designer and a professor of theatre arts at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas, and her article is based on documents in the collection of the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio. The Robert L.B. Tobin Theatre Arts Collection of the museum contains a box of letters and drawings by Ricketts to Penelope Wheeler, an actress, who (with Lena Ashwell) co-organized a war-time tour for wounded British and French soldiers and their medical staff.

Ricketts designed costumes for three Shakespeare plays, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice, and Two Gentlemen of Verona, although the last play was never produced. The shows were staged in Le Havre in 1918. Ricketts started working on the designs in September 1917, and he had to design no less than fifty dresses. For economic reasons he designed interchanging parts for about twenty of those.

Sir Andrew Aguecheek has a doublet embroidered with grapes, squirrels, and butterflies; the Prince jewelled gloves. Shylock is terrific, Portia has a dress covered with mermaids, Jessica wears the Oriental garb of the Jewesses in Bellini and Carpaccio, I have introduced the striped dress of the Mass of Bolsena and Titian's Paduan frescoes, some persons have arabesques on their tights and gold wings on their hats. (Self-Portrait, 1939, p. 302-303)

Shannon agreed that these designs were among his best, but neither Ricketts nor Shannon saw any of the performances.

Charles Ricketts, letter to Penelope Wheeleer (Mc Nay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas)

The article describes the London costume trade and the changes it underwent during the First World War, when certain fabrics were hard to come by, costs were higher than before, and concerns over wigs and beards added to the difficulties. Margaret Mitchell writes:

Ricketts had four months to design and supervise the creation of the costumes. In addition to fabric shortages, money problems, and general wartime concerns and stresses, an incomplete cast during the building of the costumes forced Ricketts to design costumes that could be fit to a range of sizes and physical shapes. His letters indicate that he did not understand who would be playing some of the male roles or supernumeraries.

In December 1917, Ricketts wrote to Penelope Wheeler:

I have stencilled about 100 yards of stuff and I am in advanced state of senile decay.

Although Ricketts probably worked for no fee, seeing his effort as a way of supporting wartime charity, he insisted that the seamstresses were paid. In the first week of January 1918 the costumes were ready, and after Wheeler had inspected them at her home, they were packed and shipped to France. Ricketts wrote long notes for alterations, and instructions for the actors.

Among instructions for bow tying and jewelry wearing, Ricketts explains problems with the construction. He gives advice for makeup and hairdressing, and he also tries to troubleshoot fitting problems. He indicates a few surprises; he sent extra tights and extra green satin fabric for sashes, as well as a costume for a supernumerary not yet cast: "I have included a costume for a black page for Portia. I imagine you can steal or borrow a French child for the purpose."

After the war, the costumes were reused for other plays and performances. A summary of the importance of these wartime letters about costumes is given at the end of Margaret Mitchell's article:

The letters from Charles Ricketts to Penelope Wheeler provide a vivid window into the past. His handwriting gives us the pictures: the middle-ages designer is bent over the 100 yards of stenciling late at night; the designed furniture satin is not to be had; the manager/star does not provide enough money; the situation requires complicated touring logistics; the designer encounters the obstacles of inflation; stressed collaborators slam the door in the designer's face; the designer depends on the underpaid, overworked miracle worker who has it in her hands and mind to achieve the impossible; the designer is overcommitted, and swirling around him are lost friends, financial troubles, and a violent world in conflict facing an unknown future. Even so, Ricketts insists on the perfect hem, the precise height of the feather, the exacting spangle pattern, and the emotional and physical communion of actor and costume.

88. The Great Worm revisited

John Gray's story 'The Great Worm' was published in the first number of The Dial, issued by Shannon and Ricketts from their house in The Vale. The short story describes the worm (in the last paragraph he is also called a dragon) as 'an unaffected beast', with 'four short crooked legs and two little wings', coloured 'white and gold', and having 'an exceedingly long tongue'.

This description is followed by a long scene in which the worm enters a city, and while he is examined in turn by a doorkeeper, a horseman, an officer, a surgeon-major, a philosopher, and a medical officer, the worm announces that he has come to enlist in the royal armies of the prince who rules the city. He is appointed a general. The next scene is shorter and describes how the worm, followed by the army, re-establishes the prince as the ruler in all his dominions. A longer scene follows, in which they reach a city that looks green, but turns blue. This city seems to be uninhabited, until a 'figure of silent whiteness' comes towards the worm and gives him a lily. He wears it to his heart, and during the night he is in agony, asking himself: 'Why am I a worm?'

Ah! it was too horrible; he remembered that he had been human.

The lily has taken root on his breast, and a few days later - they have resumed their journey - the worm dies. The story is followed by a short 'epilogue':

A poet lay in a white garden of lilies, shaping the images of his fancy, as the river ran through his trailing hair.
But in his garden a long worm shook himself after sleep; forgotten his face like a pearl, his beautiful eyes like a snake's, his breathing hair - all. He had complete reminiscences of a worm, and sought the deserts and ravines the dragon loves.

Illustration to 'The Great Worm', etched by Charles Ricketts (plate AE, in: The Dial, No. 1, 1889)

In blog number 84, 'A new interpretation of The Great Worm', I quoted earlier comments, and mentioned that Petra Clark of the University of Delaware published an article about this story in English Literature in Transition, 1880-1930 (volume 56, number 1, 2013). 

Gray's story was profusely illustrated by Charles Ricketts, with a vignette/initial at the beginning, a tailpiece at the end, an original colour lithograph, and an etching (reproduced in photography). However, it should be noted that there is a second contribution in this issue of The Dial in which a worm is one of the characters. This is a parody of a Wagner opera, called 'The Cup of Happiness'. For this Ricketts did a woodcut of a lady with a wormlike dragon, comprising an initial 'T'.

Illustration to 'The Cup of  Happiness', by Charles Ricketts (The Dial, No. 1, 1889, p. 27)

This is relevant, because it follows that Ricketts and Gray were working on a story about a worm simultaneously. We must question whether the illustrations for Gray's story were done before, during, or after Gray had submitted his story to Shannon and Ricketts. In the magazine this story and its illustrations are presented as a coherent cooperation. Surely, Ricketts must have read Gray's story before he could design the initial V and the tailpiece. But for the larger illustrations - the etching and the lithograph - we cannot be absolutely certain. It is, however, unlikely but not impossible, that Gray and Ricketts discussed the story and illustrations, while they were at work on them. In order to interpret the story, one has to find clues that may or may not be affirmed by the illustrations. Petra Clark avoids the pitfalls of interpreting an illustrated story:

Here, Ricketts's illustrations do not merely 'illustrate' Gray's story; instead, the aspects of "The Great Worm" that Ricketts chooses to portray tell us much about the ideas he wishes to comment upon, as does his exercise of editorial control in deciding where to place those images. Appearing as they do, in unexpected locations throughout the first number, his illustrations therefore "color" the reading of the content as a whole. These illustrations also force readers to see the Worm as Ricketts does - many pages before they encounter the story itself - since the first representation of this figure serves as the color frontispiece. (p. 35)

The colour lithograph depicts the lady with the lily opposite the white and golden worm in a green mountainous landscape (see blog 84).

Yet it is hard to [...] ignore the overtly phallic shape of the Worm's body or his cheeky grin (p. 36)

The story and the illustrations complement and contradict one another, says Clark, and they

engage in the discourses of gender, sexuality and aestheticism that characterize the Dial in general. (p. 37)

Clark points out that the epilogue is a small but important segment:

Here the poet and the story he crafts about the Worm become conflated: the poet imagines the Great Worm in particular and has the memories of a worm in general, insinuating that he is somehow implicitly tied to his artistic imaginings. (p. 39)

In both illustrations [the initial and the lithograph] the Worm rears its head as though in a state of arousal produced by the voluptuous nude woman before him. When this imagery of arousal is translated into the Epilogue, the poet's sexual excitement would instead be seen to stem from the "images of his fancy" that he has shaped, as though artistic creation is stimulating to the artist's "masculinity" in more ways than one. By linking the story's Worm and the Epilogue's poet in these ways, Gray simultaneously emphasizes the quixotic effeteness and the virile productive power of the Worm/poet as an artist, while Ricketts's illustrations of the Great Worm further poke fun at these contradictory attributes of the male artist. (p. 39-40)

Clark points out that during the Aesthetic Movement, Britain's imperial strength was at its summit, glorifying virility, and bringing about a 'cult of masculinity'. The Worm's volunteering for service may be seen as an act of manliness. Clark also points out that Ricketts omits certain aspects from his images, thus isolating the lady with the lily and the worm:

In both images, the Worm and the woman therefore come face each other in a much more dramatic and erotic fashion than the equivalent scene in Gray's story might suggest. (p. 46)

Clark links the lily to a symbolism of homosexuality.

One might once again refer to the fact that, after the Worm's death, the tale turns to the suspiciously languid figure of the poet of the Epilogue. The emphasis, then, is less on death than on "orgasmic ecstasy" (p. 48)

The conclusion is that

one of the extra-artistic aims of the Dial is to reimagine aesthetic or even homosexual masculinity as an alternative to the "heteronormative, masculine image of the artist," but not to take itself too seriously in the process. (p. 48)

A few loose ends in Petra Clarks interpretation should be pointed out. Firstly, Clark mentions that Ricketts did three illustrations for the story, and she ignores the tailpiece that illustrates the important Epilogue.

Tailpiece for 'The Great Worm', by Charles Ricketts (The Dial, No. 1, 1889, p. 18)

The reclining female figure once again contradicts the masculinity of the poet in the epilogue.

Another point is the appearance of the poet laureate in the story. After the worm has accepted the post of general, and after he has been examined by the medical officer, there is a short scene in which the poet comes to the fore:

This would have ended the formalities, had not the court poet found an opportunity to commence reciting the worm's military antecedents.
- Is that that man again? asked the prince; I abolish the office. The laureate ceased.

The poet laureate at the time was, of course, Alfred Lord Tennyson, whose poems had glorified the Victorian ideals, famously in 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'. Tennyson was at the end of his life when Gray wrote his story; he would die in 1892. It is not completely clear why Gray inserted this passage about the poet laureate in a story that equaled the worm to a poet. However, the poet laureate glorifies militarism, and is immediately sacked. He is the kind of poet that Gray did not want to be.