556. Charles Shannon in Theosophical Company

Blog 552, The Wise and Foolish Virgins by Charles Shannon, promised more information about Joseph Bibby's acquisition of Charles Shannon's painting that eventually was given to the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool.

Joseph Bibby (1851-1940), devoutly raised as a Methodist, was an English industrialist who, together with his brother James, built an empire around cattle fodder and Bibby's Pure Soap in Liverpool. James was the businessman, Joseph indulged in marketing and publicity. He was a generous benefactor of social causes. He developed an interest in theosophy and became a vegetarian.

Cover of Bibby's Annual (1921),
with an illustration by Ernest Wallcousins (detail)

Part of his advertising campaigns was an annual magazine, Bibby's Annual (1906-1922, 1938). He also published Bibby's Quarterly, Bibby's Almanac, and The Bibby Cake Calendar. He edited and subsidized the issues of Bibby's Annual that integrated theosophy with art and literature, incorporating plates after famous paintings and prints by Rembrandt, Reynolds, Dürer, Velasques, Gainsborough, Turner and Blake. Works by lesser-known modern artists, such as William Orpen and Charles Shannon, were also illustrated. 

A lithograph and a painting by Shannon were reproduced in the penultimate volume, 1921. The lithograph 'Tibullus in the House of Delia' received a short introduction which, together with the image, was given a corner in an article on 'The Source of Social Wellbeing':

Mr. Shannon is a master of the art of lithography, which, since the renewal of interest largely due to Mr. Whistler, is no longer regarded as a poor relation of the Graphic Arts. He is a poetic and subtle draughtsman, an absorbed student of beauty, a seeker after nobility of design who subordinates literary to pictorial requirements. For this reason it is vain to seek in our picture more than the slightest literary motive. "Delia" may be the lady referred to in Pope's lines - "Slander or poison dread from Delia's rage" - but we do not know. What seems suggested is one of those sinister beauties of the Renaissance, whom men admired and feared. we see a banquet where the guests are raising wine cups in her honour, while one whispers in her ear. It is just a fancy in which the artist has expressed his power of noble and rhythmic design. The subject was once admirably characterised by Sir Frederick Wedmore as "ideal and opulent and Titianesque."

The art-historical text and lithography are embedded in the world of theosophy. Already on the first page, above and below the table of contents, there are quotations from L.W. Rogers, long-time president of the Theosophical Society in America: 'Man is a God in the making. Latent within him are all the attributes of divinity.'

Charles Shannon, 'The Wise and Foolish Virgins'
(1919-1920) [detail]
Walker Art Gallery
(National Museums Liverpool)

Opposite the page with Shannon's lithograph is a full-page colour image, printed across, of Shannon's 1920 picture 'The Wise and Foolish Virgins'. Joseph Bibby must have purchased the oil painting in 1921 and immediately decided to use it for his annual because of its religious subject. The accompanying text is long, and we may assume that it was written by Bibby himself:

Mr. Charles Shannon is one of the most sensitive and distinguished of living artists. His art is the quiet product of study and dream; standing aloof from haste or turmoil or anything suggestive of sensation or notoriety. It reaches a region of pure beauty, beyond the world of reality or actuality; where mere events lose much of their significance, and cries of passion and emotion are but faintly heard. The theme of the "Wise and Foolish Virgins" has appealed to him solely from the point of view of the creation of pictorial beauty. His picture is frankly not very scriptural. We are not here much concerned with the Twenty-fifth Chapter of St. Matthew. This is no vision of sudden midnight alarm; of desperate appeals for what could not be spared; of the tragic doom that may befall innocent and well-meaning souls who lack forethought. The very choice of the banks of a river as the scene puts the Scriptural narrative far away; for what could the Virgins we know be doing there? If, however, we do not have a satisfying illustration of a familiar story, we get instead a noble picture. We think it was the rhythm of the interlacing figures, the haunting beauty and mystery of the night, with its fine yet austere harmony of colour that the artist aimed to achieve; and we gladly admit he has succeeded. Many an earnest thinker has pondered over the true inner meaning of this story, although its lessons of ready preparedness is obvious to all. This story of the coming of the bridegroom has in it a still deeper meaning to the devout mystic, who senses a parable of initiation, the first unfolding of the Divine super-consciousness within, which shall thereafter irradiate and illumine the whole of the inner and outer life. We cannot tell how near that moment is just when it will come, any more than a flower knows the moment when the glory of the universe will burst upon an opened heart that has at last unfolded. But it has to be watched for, prayed for, lived for; since until it comes a man lives but a darkened, divided life, seemingly cut off in consciousness from the true source of his happiness and power. So the lamp which shall light us to that supreme consummation is the vessel of consecrated thought and deed, and it must be filled always with the oil of human service, elsewise it were empty and useless indeed. To those whose light within is thus kept steadily trimmed and burning, there comes the day of Initiation, the reception at the marriage feast, and entrance into the joy of their Lord. The story also indicates that all ignorance and neglect invite a just nemesis.

So, after Bibby has detailed that this subject probably has no religious significance for Shannon - on the contrary - the explanation takes a turn towards pure theosophical thought halfway through, with which the painting ceases to exist as a work of art and becomes only a secondary illustration of a sermon-like story.

555. Pricing a Copy of A House of Pomegranates

Last week I wrote about a podcast on YouTube that had been available for some time, but there is also a more recent contribution that has to do with Ricketts and Shannon. In a series of videos on rare book profit margins, American dealer Adam Weinberger talks about three books including, most recently, a copy of Oscar Wilde's A House of Pomegranates (1891). The New York rare bookdealer explains he has acquired the Wilde book at auction, and paid around $700.  

Watch the video Rare Book Profit Margins by Adam Weinberger on YouTube.

Adam Weinberger discussing A House of Pomegranates

His brief explanation starts at 11.03 minutes from the beginning and lasts several minutes.

He says that these days one has to pay between $600 and $900 for a copy at auction. He bought this particular copy for about $700. In determining the selling price, he took into account the prices of other dealers, but he feels that he cannot go higher than $1400, a 100% profit margin (before deducting all kinds of additional costs).

Adam Weinberger
discussing A House of Pomegranates

The book cannot be found on his website, so we can assume that it has been sold.

There are several bookplates, one of which was made for Roy Norr from New York. Designed by Elisha Brown Bird (1867-1943), it dates from around 1910. Norr's collection was sold through Parke-Bernet Galleries in February 1956. 

Another copy with a bookplate of Roy Norr is part of the collection of University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL., Rare Book and Manuscript Library: Stacks Non-circulating 823 W64ho. 'Bookplate on front endpaper recto: "Roy Norr", inscription on front endpaper recto: W K Bixby'. Curious.

Bookplate of Roy Norr by E.B. Bord (around 1910)

554. The Voice of Paul Delaney

On YouTube, a podcast has been published by Nigel Beale. He interviews Paul Delaney, Ricketts's biographer, about Ricketts's life and art, but also about how the biography published in 1990 came about. The recording lasts just over an hour and the only image used is a recent portrait of Delaney.

See the podcast Paul Delaney on Biography & writing the fascinating life of Charles Ricketts.

Also available on the website 'The Biblio File', hosted by Beale, as Paul Delaney on writing the life of book designer Charles Ricketts.

Beale introduces the podcast as follows: 

I met with Paul Delaney at his home in Moncton, New Brunswick, where we talked about, among other things, his nom de plume (J. G. P. Delaney), about Ricketts of course, and his adventurous mother; about Ricketts' long time companion artist Charles Shannon; about publisher and editor Rupert Hart Davis, and about Paul's experience writing the biography of artist Glyn Philpot.

Paul Delaney (photo: Nigel Beale, 2021)

Copies of the Ricketts biography can only be bought second-hand, as Clarendon Press has not published a second edition of Charles Ricketts. A Biography after the first sold-out hardcover edition from 1990. Nowadays, copies cost anything between €44 and  €536, the latter price being ridiculous, of course. About €100 is the average price.

Also still available, but almost sold out, is the supplement Delaney (and Corine Verney) published a few years back. To buy a copy, see blog 277. An Indispensable Supplement to Charles Ricketts's Biography.

553. Faithful Servants: Percy and Matromia Nicholls

In response to my previous blog, I received some comments with more information that will allow us to get a fuller picture of Percy Nicholls and his Russian wife Matromia.

Nicholls and his wife joined the household of Ricketts and Shannon in January 1924 and after Ricketts died in 1931 they continued to care for Shannon, moving house with him to Kew where the artist died in 1937.

In his letters Ricketts regularly mentioned Nicholls, who clearly loved cats and the wireless:

Nichol[l]s, our excellent man, has stolen a charming half persian cat [...] This cat is amiable and affectionate it literally prevents one's watering the garden, by playing with the water, or else by caressing one[']s legs [...] and of course sleeps full length on anything newly planted. [...] A Wireless is being placed this moment to supply Nicholls with rag times & L[l]oyd George Speeches.

[Ricketts, letter to Mary Davis, June 1924]

During his trip to Canada and the United States in 1927, Ricketts bought stamps for the apparent collector of them, Nicholls:

I enclose a packet of Collonial [Colonial] stamps for Nicholls. I have bought him a packet of Canadians as well [...]

(Ricketts, letter to Charles Shannon, 4 November 1927)

Entry of Marriage of Percy Harold Nicholls and Matromia Kondratenka (1923) 

Percy Harold Nicholls was born in Wotton-under-Edge on 27 September 1890. His parents were Charles Beames Nicholls (1860-1915) and Alice Matilda James (1865-1931). In 1911 Nicholls was married to Lilian Daisy Blatch. At the time he was a private in the Scottish Rifles stationed in Colchester. The pair had three children: Hubert (1912-1913), Olive (1915-1985), and Joan (1921-1922). His wife died in August 1922, and he remarried the following year, on 28 April 1923, when he was listed as a Butler/Valet. His second wife, Matromia Kondratenka, was born in Russia (probably in Ukraine) on 22 November 1884. She was a domestic servant, and both she and Nicholls were then living at Chessington Hall, a country house in Surrey. Apparently, when they moved in with Ricketts and Shannon as their servants, they did not bring the only surviving daughter from Nicholls's first marriage with them.

However, after Shannon's and Nicholls's accident some family members came to assist Ricketts:

Did I tell you there is hope of a cousin of Nicholls coming here as house maid. I hope so, the family seem worthwhile though his young daughter proved a failure. I understand she is doing well in her new place.

(Ricketts to Mary Davis, 1930)

This was Olive, who was fifteen at the time.

Nicholls was mentioned in Ricketts's will. After Shannon's death, the Nicholls lived at 35 Jedburgh Street, Clapham Common (1939 census). That year Percy Nicholls received a copy of  Self-Portrait taken from the Letters & Journals of Charles Ricketts that was compiled by Thomas Sturge Moore. 

Percy Nicholls died in Clapham Common on 19 October 1947. He left the considerable sum of £1310 3s 11d to his wife and to the future husband of his daughter (Francis James Garrison, a locomotive fireman). Matromia Nicholls died in 1974.

It is highly likely that the assistant in Ricketts's studio, filmed for a D'Oyly Carte Promotional Film in 1926, is Percy Nichols.

Percy Nicholls in 1926
The Mikado - D'Oyly Carte Promotional Film 1926
Still from the film on YouTube

Charles Ricketts and Percy Nicholls in 1926
The Mikado - D'Oyly Carte Promotional Film 1926
Still from the film on YouTube

The preliminary study for Shannon's painting The Wise and Foolish Virgins (see last week's blog) in the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry was donated by his brother Alfred Edward Nicholls (1897-1969) and his wife Lillian Williams.

[Thanks are due to Mike Gunnill who asked the question about Nicholls and to Steven Halliwell and John Aplin for their information.]

552. The Wise and Foolish Virgins by Charles Shannon

A question about the couple who managed the household of Ricketts and Shannon led to a search for a study of Shannon's painting The Wise and Foolish Virgins. The painting, now in the Walker Art Gallery (Liverpool), is dated by Shannon: '1919-1920'. A large format oil painting, it measures 110.8 x 177.8 cm.

Charles Shannon, The Wise and Foolish Virgins (1919-1920)
Walker Art Gallery
(National Museums Liverpool)

The painting was donated by Joseph Bibby in 1934. 

A preliminary study for the painting is in the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry. This version of the oil painting is slightly smaller, measuring 58.4 x 95 cm.

Charles Shannon, The Wise and Foolish Virgins (1920?)
Herbert Art Gallery & Museum

This donation from Mr and Mrs A.E. Nicholls was added to the collection in 1962. Intriguingly, the donors bear the same surname as the servants of Ricketts and Shannon. These were Percy Nicholls and his (according to one source) Russian wife, who ran the household from January 1924 - they stayed until after Shannon's death. In January 1929, Nicholls was injured while hanging a painting, but not as seriously as Shannon who remained disabled for the rest of his life. For their good care, the Nicholls received paid vacations twice, one to Margate and one to Bognor and on the latter occasion 'Nicholls's cousin' came to help in the house.

Shannon needed constant nursing care and Ricketts himself was having a bad effect on his condition: 'Nicholls seems to have the best influence over him & I the worst' (letter to Mary Davis, 1930).

After Ricketts's death, friends arranged for Shannon to move to Kew (21 Kew Gardens Road), and the Nicholls also cared for him there until his death in March 1937. After Shannon's death, they continued to care for the house. It was bought by Sydney Cockerell who was eager for them to stay, probably to take care of his invalid wife, but they did not. They stayed until Cockerell moved into the house in August 1937 and still helped unpack and furnish.

On 30 May 1937, Thomas Sturge Moore wrote to Gordon Bottomley (see Gordon Bottomley-Thomas Sturge Moore correspondence, edited by John Aplin, published online by InteLex Past Masters):

Cockerell has bought the house and wanted to take over the good Nicholls too, but Mrs Nicholls put her foot down and said they must have a change. But after having a post at the Nat Gallery waved before him by Lowinsky and one at the Law Courts by Gilchrist he may be reduced to washing buses.

It is entirely possible that the generous Ricketts gave the preliminary study of the painting to Nicholls, but what the relationship between Percy and A.E. Nicholls is I do not know.

(About Joseph Bibby a next time.)

551. A Daphnis and Chloe Provenance (3)

The final episode on the provenance of the copy of Daphnis and Chloe in the collection of Arizona State University Library deals with the older bookplate of Charles Plumtre Johnson that was pasted into the book first, and later partly covered by Sperisen's ex libris (see blog 550) and Ricketts's postcard to Walker (see blog 549).

Arthur Robertson, Bookplate for Charles Plumptre Johnson (1889)

It is a rather nineteenth-century image, dated 1889, in which various neo-styles evoke the atmosphere of a cosy spacious reading room with fireplace, an oil lamp attached to a lectern with the ex libris inscription, a seated woman, a standing child, and a relaxed girl, all handling rather large-format books. To the left and right, books stand and lie, displayed, stacked or set aside. 

The ex libris, signed with the initials 'AR', was drawn by the  artist Arthur Robertson (1850-1911). [Brian North Lee wrote an engaging article about him for The Bookplate Magazine of March 1992.]

Fortunately, the name of the book's original owner has been given the less common middle name of Plumptre. Charles Plumptre Johnson can be identified quite easily as the son of Sir George Johnson (1818-1896), Physician-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria.

Charles Plumptre Johnson (1853-1938) was a yachtsman - for his yachting career see Maritime Views. However, he was also a bibliophile, a bibliographer of note, and an author of several books on collecting first editions of Dickens and Thackeray. Educated at Marlborough and matriculated at the London University in 1872, he was admitted a solicitor in 1876. At the end of his professional career, he was a director of the Law Fire Insurance Society.

Charles Plumptre Johnson by Bassano Ltd,
whole-plate glass negative, 20 April 1921
[National Portrait Gallery: NPG x120938]
(Creative Commons License)

He was a member of the Sette of Odd Volumes as early as 1891 and inscribed copies of this bibliophile society's publications are now in the Norman Colbeck Collection. He collected modern literary works, water-colours and prints of boats, and he donated his collection of Gilbert and Sullivan, including manuscripts, to the British Museum. Given in 1935, the collection was exhibited in the King's Library in 1936.

Initially, he lived in London at 14, Cavendish-Place, but he relocated to Sevenoaks in Kent in 1911 after acquiring the Park Grange Estate where he lived until his death in 1938. He bequeathed the house and estate to the Sevenoaks School of which he had been a stern supporter for years. His fortune amounted to £340.000 of which large sums went to hospitals, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and the school.

On Monday 1 June 1942, Sotheby's organized the auction of his book collection: 'Printed Books, comprising sets of First Editions in fine Bindings of Charles Dickens, W.M. Thackeray, A. Trollope and many other famous English Authors, of the late Charles Plumptre Johnson ESO’ (Times, 19 May 1942). Newspaper reports also mentioned works by Walter Scott, Tobias Smollett, R.L. Stevenson, Thomas Hardy and J.M. Barrie: 'Some of them are accompanied by autograph letters of the novelists, as in the case of Barrie, who discloses that "in a vague sort of way Jamieson, who edited the Scottish Dictionary was the original Little Minister". There are 32 first editions in the Stevenson set, 74 volumes of Scott, 131 of Thackeray, 136 of Dickens (including 54 of Dickensiana), 51 of Hardy, and 32 of Smollett. A first edition of Sherlock Holmes, inscribed and signed by Conan Doyle is another rarity in the saleroom. It was published in 1894.' (The Scotsman, 19 May 1942).

But there must have been an earlier auction of his library. Bookseller and collector Norman Colbeck (1903-1988) remembered this in 1968:

[...] on his death I attended the sale (held by Maples) in his residence, Park Grange, Sevenoaks – a lovely manor house looking down on Knole Park. The occasion was indeed the most unforgettable event in my life as far as book sales are concerned: and though I do not suppose anybody present was more sensitive than I to condition in books of the eighteen-nineties, I am sure there are several collectors still living who recall those days as vividly as I do.

(A Bookman’s Catalogue. The Norman Colbeck Collection of Nineteenth-Century and Edwardian Poetry and Belles Lettres in the Special Collections of The University of British Columbia. Compiled with a Preface by Norman Colbeck. Edited by Tirthankar Bose, with an Introduction by William E. Fredeman. Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press, 1987, p. xxi.)

Unfortunately, I have not seen a catalogue of these auctions, but I assume that Daphnis and Chloe, an edition from the 1890s, was auctioned at the first auction in the house of the collector Charles Plumptre Johnson.

550. A Daphnis and Chloe Provenance (2)

In this sequel about the provenance of a copy of Daphnis and Chloe (1893) in the collection of the Arizona State University Library - see last week's blog 549. A Daphnis and Chloe Provenance (1) - I will consider the more recent bookplate pasted to the reverse of the front cover.

Daphnis and Chloe (Vale Press, 1893)
Collection ASU, Arizona State University Library:
SPEC C-1987

This is the bookplate of Albert Sperisen (1908-1999) that he used only for his collection of Vale Press books. He designed and commissioned other ex-libris as well, for example, for his collection of Eric Gill wood engravings. 

Sperison, who lived in San Francisco, enrolled in the California School of Fine Arts, and later worked as an art director and book designer, and he was associated with some private presses, including the Black Vine Press. He was an influential member of the Book Club of California since 1937, serving as librarian, and (vice-) president of the Board. 

Parts of his book collection were donated to Stanford University Library, Clark Library, University of California at Los Angeles, and the Gleeson Library in San Francisco.

His Vale Press collection is said to be at Stanford, but some Vale Press books have found their way to institutional collections elsewhere, and to private collections.

Press mark in The List of Books to Be Published
by Messrs. Hacon and Ricketts... (1896)

For these books, he used a bookplate depicting the first pressmark of the Vale Press: the initials V and P, a rose, and the letters S and R representing Charles Shannon and Charles Ricketts. Its first appearance was in a pre-Vale book, Hero and Leander (1894), in which it was printed on the last page under the motto 'Inter Folia Renata Rosa'.

This press mark also adorned the first prospectuses for the Vale Press in 1896 (such as The List of Books to Be Published by Messrs. Hacon and Ricketts..., 1896), but in the first official book of the Vale Press, Milton's Early Poems (1896), it was changed: the letters S and R were replaced by H and R, the firm's business partners: Llewellyn Hacon and Charles Ricketts. Shannon was not involved in the publishing business.

Press mark in A List of Books Issued
by Messrs. Hacon & Ricketts...
(1898)

Not only the initials have been changed, the whole image has been redrawn, the serifs of the V are more in keeping with the typeface Ricketts had since designed (in the earlier design these were rather thin lines), and the rose now shows all kinds of subtleties that were missing in the first design. 

It is somewhat strange that Sperisen chose the earlier variant for his bookplate, which after all did not really refer to the Vale Press period, but to the pre-Vale books, and that he thus ignored the later more beautiful version.

However, it is conceivable that he first acquired a copy of Hero and Leander and only later managed to buy Milton's Early Poems, or one of the lists of announcements, and when he noticed the differences between the two designs, his bookplate had long since been printed and put to use.

549. A Daphnis and Chloe Provenance (1)

Some books amass a demonstrable history over the course of their existence, ranging from neglect (broken spine, holes caused by rabbit attacks) to perfect museum care. Sometimes, on the outside, nothing is discernible. But once opened, several testimonials leap into view.

Daphnis and Chloe (Vale Press, 1893)

Collection ASU, Arizona State University Library,

SPEC C-1987

[Copyright Ricketts letter:

with permission of the executors of the Charles Ricketts estate, 

Leonie Sturge-Moore and Charmain O'Neil]

A copy of the pre-Vale edition of Daphnis and Chloe (1893), containing wood-engravings by Ricketts and Shannon, in the Arizona State University Library collection shows two bookplates and a postcard. Let's try to establish their chronology, but first we will look at the most exciting item: a pasted-in postcard from Charles Ricketts to R.A. Walker dated 1927 - the postmark is from May 27, 1927.  The book dates back to 1893. So there's a lot of time in between.

Rainford Armitage Walker (1886-1960), a Beardsley and Shannon connoisseur, apparently suggested to Ricketts that he reissue the 1893 pre-Vale edition of Daphnis and Chloe. Ricketts's engaging response indicates that he is at once interested and full of doubt.

I intend replacing some 4 cuts by new ones which were not originally executed &, for the moment, I hesitate to take up wood engraving or facing the fuss of an reissue, though I feel it should be done as the original is badly printed. 

Printing techniques had changed seriously in the meantime, yet this remains a surprising assessment of one of the few books that was actually a huge success at the beginning of his career.

548. The bookplate for Gleeson White Revisited

Almost nine years ago I published a blog about the problematic dating and the different versions of a bookplate that Ricketts designed for Gleeson White: Blog 95. The Bookplate for Gleeson White. The problem arose that reference works published different versions of the design: with the title 'Igdrasil' partly in mirror image in Ricketts' script, or not in mirror image and in a different handwriting; with or without dating under the image, and with or without the inscription 'Ex libris Gleeson White'.

By now, thanks to images available online, I think the riddle has finally been solved. No less than four versions of the bookplate exist.

Version 1

Charles Ricketts, 'Igdrasil' (1890)
[British Museum, 1962,0809.12]
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International 
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

153x152 mm. 

No inscription. 

No date.

Monogram in reverse. 

Title ‘IGDRASIL’: letters ‘DR’ are in reverse, the extended leg of ‘R’ points to the left. 

Location: British Museum.

Version 2

Charles Ricketts, 'Igdrasil' (1890)
[British Museum, 1912,0819.6]
[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International 
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

175x150 mm. 

Includes inscription: “Ex Libris Gleeson White”. 

No date.

Monogram in reverse. 

Title ‘IGDRASIL’: letters ‘DR’ are in reverse, the extended leg of ‘R’ points to the left. 

Locations: British Museum: 1912,0819.6; Bodleian Library: John Johnson Collection; V&A: EW 149. E.2559-1929.

Version 3

Charles Ricketts, 'Igdrasil' (1890)

78x76 mm (image), 85x80 mm (including inscription “Ex Libris Gleeson White”] [leaf: 109x99 mm].

Includes inscription: "Ex Libris Gleeson White". 

No date.

Monogram in reverse.

Title ‘IGDRASIL’: Letters ‘DR’ are in reverse, the extended leg of ‘R’ points to the left.

Location: Private collection.

Version 4

Charles Ricketts, 'Igdrasil' (1890)

79x69 cm.

Includes inscription: “Ex Libris Gleeson White”.

Dated: 'MDCCCXC'.

Monogram in reverse. 

Title ‘IGDRASIL’: inscription has been redrawn; ‘IGDRASIL not written in CR’s script; letters are not in reverse, the leg of the R is not extended.

Location: Private collection, pasted in a book from the library of Gleeson White.

This was the version Gleeson White himself used in some of his books. The year has been added and the title corrected so that it is easy to read, although some of Charles Ricketts's distinctive script is sacrificed in the process.

547. Emery Walker and the Vale Press

Emery Walker - see previous blog - played an important advisory role for private presses in the 1890s. He inspired William Morris to design his first typeface and advised the Kelmscott Press, had a printing press installed for Cobden-Sanderson and supervised the production of the Doves Press for many years, St. John Hornby (Ashendene Press) wrote that Walker was 'a mine from which to draw a wealth of counsel', and Walker advised Harry Kessler (Cranach Presse). In the same breath it is often said that he also advised Charles Ricketts and the Vale Press.

Sir Emery Walker

Unknown photographer

Modern bromide print, circa 1890

© National Portrait Gallery, London [NGP x200016]

Creative Commons Licence

This is restated in the reconstruction of Walker's lectures, Printing for Book Production: Emery Walker's Three Lectures for the Sandars Readership in Biblography, edited by Richard Mathews and Joseph Rosenblum (2019):

Walker helped Charles Ricketts with the Vale Press in Chelsea [...]'.

The assertion is seen as a commonly known fact that can do without a footnote. But actually, that footnote would remain empty: there is no known source for this claim.

The earliest possible reference, as far as I can determine, is from 1938, when both Walker and Ricketts were already dead. Greta Lagro Potter wrote: 'Emery Walker was a friend of Charles Ricketts of the Vale Press where the same ideals are expressed.' (An Appreciation of Sir Emery Walker’, The Library Quarterly, July 1938, p. 409.)

This friendship was later redefined as a relationship of adviser and pupil, see Charles B. Russell who suggested that Ricketts and Walker were collaborators. ('Cobden-Sanderson and the Doves Press', Prairie Schooner, Fall 1940, p. 181): 'Walker also helped to design the "Subiaco" type of the Ashendene Press under the direction of St. John Hornby. Later on he went with Charles Ricketts of the Vale Press.'

Later it was presented as fact, as in Rookledge’s International Handbook of Type Designers by Ron Eason & Sarah Rookledge (1991, p. 164) where Emery Walker was mentioned as adviser to the Vale Press after 1908 (The Vale Press ceased to exist in 1904!).

Ricketts and Walker did know each other. Walker, for example, visited Ricketts and Shannon on 9 December 1897. He was then in the company of Sydney Cockerell who apparently met Ricketts before, but not Shannon. Cockerell noted in his diary:

Then with Walker to 8 Hammersmith Terrace where I met Shannon & Ricketts. Liked Shannon, whom I had not met before, very much. 

(See William S. Peterson, Morris & Company. Essays on Fine Printing, 2020, p. 100-101). 

8 Hammersmith Terrace was the address of May Morris, the daughter of William, who was often visited by Ricketts. Ricketts's diary note for 7 March 1902, for example, mentions: 'Dined with Miss Morris. Emery Walker turned up afterwards and told us amusing details of the decoration schemes for the Coronation [...].'

Walker also owned some books from Ricketts's Vale Press which now reside with the Emery Walker Library at The Wilson Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum. On 17 July 1899 Ricketts gave him a copy of A Defence of the Revival of Printing, which had just appeared.

But all indications are that Ricketts and Walker did not know each other when the Vale Press was founded and that the issues of The Dial were not given to him when they appeared, but only later. 

Most importantly, however, Ricketts did not need Walker's advice. Unlike Morris, Cobden-Sanderson and Hornby, he did not have a printing press at home. His books were set by hand and printed on a hand press by expert staff at the Ballantyne Press. If Walker had played a part, Ricketts would have mentioned him in his bibliography, where he mentions the punch-cutter Prince and the engraver Keates (misspelled as Keats) and showed his gratitude:

My books would not have achieved that measure of technical success in "build" and presswork had I not benefited by the untiring energy and the intelligent sympathy of Mr. Charles McCall and of his son, C. Home McCall. It will remain known only to ourselves the tact and patience it has required to secure the success of a printed border, or even a mere page of type with an initial, not to mention those books with recurring woodcuts. (A Bibliography of the Books Issued by Hacon & Ricketts, 1904, p. xvii-xviii).

546. Ricketts is in the Index

As a Ricketts blogger, I naturally regularly check the index of books in which his name might appear. In the book of letters to and from Emery Walker (1851-1933), the man to whose advice both William Morris (Kelmscott Press) and Thomas Cobden-Sanderson (Doves Presss) owed much, Ricketts's name appears in the index with four page references. 

Sir Emery Walker
Unknown photographer
Glass negative, 1920-1933
© National Portrait Gallery, London [NGP x31052]
Creative Commons Licence

The book was published in 2019, but because of the lockdowns and disrupted transport routes I only saw it last week: Emery Walker. Arts, Crafts and a World in Motion (Oak Knoll Press), compiled by Simon Loxley.

However, of the four references, only two are justified. They refer to the pages (141-142) that repeat the well-known story about throwing punches, matrices, and lead type into the Thames.

In a footnote to a letter from Morris to Walker of 1894 (letter 26, pages 38-39), Ricketts and the Vale Press are mentioned in a biographical sketch of Horace Hart, who worked for the Ballantyne Press, where Ricketts had his books printed. But the chronology is all wrong here, Ricketts and Hart certainly did not meet at Ballantyne, because Hart had already started working for the Oxford University Press in 1883, eight years before Ricketts had his journal The Dial printed by the Ballantyne Press in 1891-1892.

Intriguing is a reference to Ricketts on page 121, letter 82 from R.B. Cunninghame Graham to Emery Walker, 5 November 1912. Cunninghame Graham wrote: 

Dear Mr Walker,

I have written to Ricketts asking him to call on me. All I can tell him are my personal recollections of Morris.

A footnote provides a brief biography of Ricketts:

Charles Ricketts (1866-1931), artist and theatre designer, whose Vale Press was one of the significant private presses inspired by Morris. 

But why would Ricketts want to hear about Morris? Was he working on an article about the founder of the Kelmscott Press? Loxley is silent on that and does not explain why Walker thinks it necessary for Cunninghame Graham and Ricketts to meet. During this period Ricketts wrote articles and books on art, and letters on art policy, to the editors of newspapers, but he was not concerned with typography or figures like Morris.

The explanation is, of course, simple; Loxley is not a thorough editor. 

This passage is not about Ricketts at all, but about the author of a biography that would be published by Herbert Jenkins in 1913, William Morris, a biography written by Arthur Compton-Rickett.

Sir Emery Walker
By William Strang (1859-1921)
Etching, 1906
© National Portrait Gallery, London [NGP x31052]
Creative Commons Licence

545. Leonard Smithers, Charles Shannon and An Ideal Husband

The Rivendale Press has for some time been publishing a series of simply produced booklets (in a marble paper cover) under the title Questing Collector Series. The title says it all: the booklets contain questions, suggestions and finds from collectors of 1890s figures and publications. Not all conjectures seem justified to me, but the finds are always interesting. [For the list of titles, go to the website of the Rivendale Press].

Part 3 of the series, written by Steven Halliwell and Michael Seeney, is called Leonard Smithers, Charles Shannon and An Ideal Husband (2020). It deals with several issues: reuse of a (perhaps earlier) binding for An Ideal Husband, variant spine titles and binding variants for The Importance of Being Earnest.

Oscar Wilde,
An Ideal Husband
(1899):
spine design 1
[photo: Steven Halliwell]

For some inexplicable reason, one may find two different bindings for An Ideal Husband, and the variations do not concern the decorations designed by Charles Shannon, but the lettering on the spine.

Oscar Wilde,
An Ideal Husband
(1899):
spine design 2
[photo: Steven Halliwell]

A serif typeface was used for most of them, but a non-serif typeface was selected for some copies.

The difference is most obvious in the distance between the publisher's name and the year, and and there is a variant in Co where the dash under the letter o is replaced by a dot after the letter.

Wilde's bibliographer Stuart Mason (C.S. Millard) noted such a difference in typeface for The Importance of Being Earnest, published six months earlier, but not for this book. Since neither book was reviewed by the press and sales were disappointing, it is not implausible that not all copies of the editions were bound at the same time, especially if the lack of success was anticipated. And, perhaps, Mason misplaced his note? After the sales of The Importance were disappointing, it would be logical for him not to have all copies of An Ideal Husband bound at once.

That does seem the most reasonable explanation, but then it remains strange that so few copies with that variant binding turn up. Other possibilities cannot therefore be ruled out. It may be that a printing plate was made for the decorations on the front and back cover including the spine, but without lettering, or that proof bindings were used later for some copies.

[Thanks are due to Steven Halliwell for providing the scans].

544. Paul Lambotte

Searching for Belgian Vale Press collections - not found by the way, there seem to be surprisingly few copies of this private press in Flemish, Brussels or Walloon libraries and museums - I came across some letters by Ricketts in the collection of the Royal Library in Brussels.

The cards and notes are addressed to the Belgian art historian Paul Lambotte (1862-1939), who put together exhibitions of contemporary Belgian art in London, Brighton, Cardiff, Oxford (and elsewhere) during the Great War. At the openings Lambotte gave a talk in 'mellifluous French, aiding our comprehension of the range of the exhibition' (West Sussex Gazette, 29 April 1915). 

There was a pathetic side to some of this work, and that was many of the beautiful pictures represented architectural details of one sort and another of buildings which had been ravaged, and many of which had disappeared, and the world would know them no more.

(Oxford Chronicle, 14 May 1915)

A portrait photograph of Lambotte, with a handwritten dedication to Isidore Spielmann in the National Portrait Gallery, bears witness to his English adventures and the network he maintained. He came to London in November 1914 to set up the Fund for Poor Belgian Artists. 

The Westminster Gazette reported (16 November 1914) that a large number of the artists were unable to leave their homes in Antwerp or Ghent, and funds to assist them were already exhausted. Lambotte, director at the Ministry of Fine Arts in Belgium, had been sent over to London with a number of Belgian works of art at his disposal, organising a first exhibition at the Goupil Gallery in London, a show that was opened on 18 November and closed eights days later. 

On 28 January 1915, a Belgian section - arranged by Lambotte - was added to the War Relief Exhibition at the Royal Academy. Many of the works sent from Belgium had not yet arrived, so he had to tap into his English network in order to complete the exhibitions.

Portrait of Paul Lambotte, 1915
[Unknown photographer]
[National Portrait Gallery, London: NPG x139993,
Creative Commons License]

In one of his letters Ricketts refers to this fund: 'I sincerely trust that your fund may obtain all the success it deserves. Alas! Would that real art lovers were rich!' (Undated card, probably November 1914, Royal Library Brussels, Ms II 7.133/760).

Ricketts and Shannon received Lambotte and his wife in early December and afterwards they wrote about a print of Shannon, and about a possible meeting with the collector Edmund Davis.

Jan Vanden Eeckhoudt, portret van Paul Lambotte (1933)
[Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels]

543. Ricketts's Publisher's Devices for Osgood, McIlvaine & Co. (8)

The final instalment of this series deals with the last book Charles Ricketts designed for the publisher Osgood, McIlvaine & Co., A House of Pomegranates, published in November 1891.

Charles Ricketts,
publisher's mark for
Oscar Wilde,
A House of Pomegranates (1891)

In this high-profile book, Ricketts placed the publisher's mark not on the title page, nor on the binding, but on the reverse of the title page. It has become a much more complex drawing, based on the first publisher's mark he drew for Intentions, but here the horse's wings are pointed upwards rather than horizontally. 

The publisher's mark is only partly visible here and is largely lost behind the figure of a woman with a brush; a palette lies at her side, the symbol for art and painting. She is working on perfecting the vignette. It is curious, of course, that Ricketts makes such a symbolic representation of his last publisher's mark, pointing to the artistic nature of his contribution to the book.

Some of the original drawings for this book are kept in the Eccles collection of the British Library. The one for the publisher's device is in black ink and Chinese white, 92x36 mm on white cardboard (c. 209x169 mm), signed l.r. CR (in reverse), with a marginal annotation in CR's handwriting: '5/2' centimetre (the format of the reproduction) and with corrections in Chinese white. 

The drawing was, apparently, intended to be reproduced in reverse. The handwritten letters O and M (Osgood McIlvaine) were also written in reverse: '.M .O', but were erased and replaced by 'O. M.' This has caused the image, which may have been reworked by the engraver of the block, to be blurred. It seems that the original dot before the original 'M' has not been erased completely.

Ricketts was often disappointed by the execution of his designs and that must also have been the case here.

Device No. V
November 1891. 54 x 21 mm.
Oscar Wilde, A House of Pomegranates. Verso of title page. Printed in black.

542. Ricketts's Publisher's Devices for Osgood, McIlvaine & Co. (7)

In November 1891 the first volume of The Bard of the Dimbovitza. Roumanian Folk-Songs appeared. Ricketts designed the title page, with a new publisher's mark, and the binding (both spine and front cover). A second volume followed in 1894.

Hélène Vacaresco, The Bard of the Dimbovitza. Second Series (1892):
spine design by Charles Ricketts (detail)

The ivory-coloured cloth cover displays three gilt ornaments of musical instruments with wheat stalks and swirls. Ricketts made two vignettes for the front cover, one of which is also printed in mirror image. They probably depict a lute and a violin, but do not strictly resemble specific Romanian string instruments. The spine has decorations of dots and heart-shaped ornaments. Two winged hearts are depicted at the top of the spine.

The device on the title page is a stylized version of the one on the front cover of Lord Arthur Savile's Crime & Other Stories.

Hélène Vacaresco, The Bard of the Dimbovitza (1891):
title page designed by Charles Ricketts

In addition to the letters 'O' and 'M', the year in roman numerals has now been added to the design. The ribbons have been retransformed to a pair of snakes.

This publisher's mark became widespread through reprints of volume 1 (1894), the publication of volume 2 (1892, and a reprint in 1897), after which the title passed to Harper & Brothers publishers in London. A 'new and enlarged edition' (2 parts in 1 volume) was published by Harper in 1902, while the same book also appeared at Scribner's in New York. In 1904 a reprint of both editions appeared. Each time, the roman numerals to the left and right of the publisher's mark were adapted.

Hélène Vacaresco, The Bard of the Dimbovitza (1892):
publisher's mark designed by Charles Ricketts

In 1908, Harper & Brother's in London published an edition. In 1911 and 1914, reprints announced as 'Complete Edition' appeared at Harper & Brother's, now based in both London and New York.

Hélène Vacaresco, The Bard of the Dimbovitza (New York, 1902)

From 1911 onwards, the year in the publisher's mark disappears.

Device No. IV
November 1891. 69 x 35 mm.
The Bard of the Dimbovitza. Roumanian Folk-Songs. Collected from the Peasants by Hélène Vacaresco. Title page. Printed in black.