682. Charles Shannon in Sleaford

Charles Shannon spent most of his adult life in London, but apart from the long trips abroad he made with Ricketts or others, he occasionally returned to the area where he came from. In September 1918, for example, he spent ten days with his sisters Helen and Catherine in Sleaford (Lincolnshire), the village where he had grown up and where his father, the reverend Frederick William Shannon, had been a rector of Quarrington and Old Sleaford from 1861 to 1909. Shannon's father would die a year later, and was buried by the north door of Quarrington Church where a cross marks his grave. After his own death in 1929, Shannon's ashes were interned in front of this grave.

Exactly when is undisclosed, but at some point Shannon designed a new cover for the baptismal font for Quarrington Church.

Charles Shannon, cover for the baptismal font
of Quarrington Church
[Photo: Chris Hodgson]

The font itself reputedly dates back to the late fourteenth century, and probably was brought to Quarrington in the late 1800s, but in the late twentieth century the new Shannon cover was discarded by the church, probably because of the enormous weight of the iron construction which made it not easy to use as it required at least three people to open the cover for a christening ceremony. It is now privately owned.

Carre Gallery director Christopher Hodgson and the Shannon display

The Sleaford Gallery Arts Trust hosts a permanent display relating to Shannon in its Carre Gallery. [See the website of Carre Gallery.] Shannon prints and ephemera were collected by Christopher Micklethwaite and donated by the family to the Carre Gallery to honour Shannon and Micklethwaite, both residents of Sleaford.

[Thanks are due to Christopher Hodgson.]

681. A Prophetic Book: Vale, Vale

In his articles for The Academy, Robert Ross was free to experiment. In the 29 September 1906 episode, the starting point is Algernon Swinburne (1837-1909), who was still alive when Ross published his article. In 1868, the poet had published a study on William Blake (1757-1827) and Ross wrote: 'Much has been discovered about Blake since 1866' [1868]. However, 'it would be idle at this time of day to criticise'.

William Rothenstein, 'Portrait of Robert Ross'
(National Portrait Gallery, London)

Instead, Ross makes a big turn by imagining that Blake could have been inspired by Swinburne:

How fascinated Blake would have been with Mr. Swinburne if by some exquisite accident he had lived after him. We should have had, I fancy, another Prophetic Book - something of this kind.

Then follows a conversation between Ross and a certain Theodormon in a landscape next to ‘the gulf of oblivion'. He promises that Ross will get to see Swinburne, he does wander around and his 'permanent address is the Peaks, Parnassus', a joke on Swinburne's place of residence The Pines in Putney.

They come to a printing house where William Morris is 'reverting to type and transmitting art to the middle classes', but a voice sounds from inside the building.

'Vale, Vale,' cried Charles Ricketts from the interior. I was rather vexed as I wanted to ask Ricketts his opinions about various things and people and to see his wonderful collection. Shannon, however, presented me with a lithograph, and a copy of “Memorable Fancies” by C.R.

Then follows the rendering of this 24-line poem purportedly written by Ricketts making fun of all art historians, - each line could be given at least two footnotes to address all the innuendos-  while beginning with the non-academic background of Ricketts himself.

Charles Ricketts & Charles Shannon,
cover for The Dial, No. 1 (1889)
(from Yellow Nineties 2.0)

How sweet I roamed from school to school,

But I attached myself to none;

I simply sat upon my Dial,

And watched the other artists' fun.

Will Rothenstein can guard the faith,

Safe in Academic fold;

'T was very wise of William Strang,

What need have I for Chantrey's gold?

Let the old masters be my share,

And let them fall on B.B.'s corn;

Let the Uffizi take to Steer,

What do I care for Herbert Horn?

Or the stately Holmes of England,

Whose glories never fade;

The Constable of Burlington,

Who holds the Oxford Slade.

It's Titian here and Titian there,

And come to have a look;

But "thanks of course Giorgione,"

With Mr. Herbert Cook.

For MacColl is an intellectual thing,

And Hugh P. Lane keeps Dublin awake;

And Fry to New York has taken wing,

And Charles Holroyd has got the cake.

Ross could go quite far with his innuendos and even write about homosexuality, in a short piece on John Addington Symonds (1840-1893):

He published at the Kelmscott the other day 'An Ode to a Grecian Urning.' The proceeds of the sale went to the Arts and Krafts Ebbing Guild, but the issue of 'Aretino's Bosom and other Poems' has been postponed.

In 1873 Symonds had written about pederasty and homosexuality in A Problem in Greek Ethics (published anonymously in 1883). Ross refers to this by inserting the word for pederast (urning) in the title of a poem by Keats and by introducing the name of the German psychiatrist and sexologist Richard Krafft Ebing in the name of the Arts and Crafts Society. But he was careful enough not to include allusions to his (or his own) homosexuality in the Ricketts poem.

For the reader, solving all the art historical references in this poem is a pleasant summer puzzle.

Robert Ross, 'Swinblake: A Prophetic Book, With Home Zarathrusts',
The Academy, 29 September 1906

(Robert Ross, 'Swinblake: A Prophetic Book, With Home Zarathrusts', The Academy, 29 September 1906, p. 3078.)

680. The Cecil Rhodes of Art

During the time Robert Ross ran the Carfax Gallery, he regularly wrote articles for The Academy that were somewhere between review, commentary, anecdote and fiction written in a personal style with plenty of inside jokes and inimitable humour. The name of Ricketts often appeared in the columns, which mainly indicates that Ross and Ricketts spoke to each other frequently and not just about art (the latter is especially evident in their personal correspondence). Some of his pieces were collected by Ross in the publication Masques and Phases (1909), but by no means all of them. 

Robert Ross, 'The Drama. Mr. Arthur Symons's Morality'
(The Academy, 21 April 1906) (fragment)

His 'review' of an Arthur Symons play led him to contemplate the rise of small theatre groups, including The Literary Theatre Society which involved Ricketts and his friends. Ross, evidently, argued there were too many small coteries:

It seems to me a great pity that the Stage Society should not amalgamate with the New Stage Club, The Literary Theatre Club and all the better dramatic societies. I am in favour of imperialism on the stage, if not elsewhere. The Illicit Theatres Limited would be a good name for the company. For the romantic symbolist and poetic drama they would obtain the services of that Cecil Rhodes of art, Mr. Charles Ricketts, and those Jameson raiders of poetry, Mr. Sturge Moore. Mr. Laurence Binyon and Mr. Arthur Symons. (Robert Ross, The Drama. Mr. Arthur Symons's Morality', The Academy, 21 April 1906, p. 383.)

Of course, the comparison of Ricketts to Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) is viewed in a very different perspective today, but in London in 1906 the imperialist flavour was not considered as negative, and Rhodes, a mining magnate and politician who founded Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), was seen as an energetic man 'who got things done'.

679. A Series of Cartoons by Charles Shannon (4)

Shannon's final drawing in The Alarum depicts a domestic scene with a woman and a man in their living room between plants on side tables, rattan chairs, a piano, tall windows with curtains, a work of art on a chest of drawers (or a cabinet), a tea table, and a carpet.

Charles Shannon, 'A Diplomatic Answer', The Alarum, Vol. 1, No. 4 (10 November 1886), p. 7.

All his drawings in this magazine are not only signed with his full name, but also dated. The latter has a reason. Magazines by no means always published such drawings, for which they paid, in the next issue. To prevent an artist, once famous, from being criticised for such drawings, the signature proved that it was an early work, which the artist no longer had to account for. Indeed, some of the drawings for Judy remained unpublished for several years - Shannon himself had since taken a different path.

678. A Series of Cartoons by Charles Shannon (3)

The drawings Shannon placed in The Alarum served two purposes: making money and raising name awareness. The drawings themselves could not be sensational; they were not supposed to be artistic, but more or less amusing or entertaining.

Charles Shannon, in The Alarum, Vol. 1, No. 3 (3 November 1886), p. 10

Many of these drawings take place in society, sometimes in unfamiliar, accidental company, such as in the modern means of transport, the train. Shannon contributed two drawings to the third number of The Alarum (for the other one, see last week's blog). 

In a railway carriage, a young American man sits opposite an older Englishman (hat, umbrella, lorgnon), who sits in the corner near the window. A lady, reading a newspaper, does not take part in the conversation.

First Traveller. - "I reckon, Stranger, this pace wouldn't pay in America."

Second traveller (satirically). "I suppose you go so fast you can't see the villages?"

First Traveller. - "You bet. That's nothing : they go at such a lick over there that standing in a village you can't see the train pass."

Could Shannon himself have laughed at this drawing?

677. A Series of Cartoons by Charles Shannon (2)

While Ricketts had no experience in drawing cartoons when he and Shannon started collaborating on The Alarum in 1886, his companion had. Indeed, Shannon had previously published such drawings in a comic weekly, Judy, or, The London Serio-Comic Journal, which was edited by C.H. Ross. 

Charles Shannon, 'De Trop' (unsigned).
In Judy, or The London Serio-Comic Journal, volume 37, 25 November 1885, p. 255.

Shannon started there as a contributor in November 1885, following in the footsteps of Reginald Savage whose first cartoon in Judy was published on 27 May 1885. Most of Shannon's drawings were glimpses of society life.

While the collaboration on The Alarum was short-lived, Shannon's drawings were continued in Judy until February 1888. 

His second drawing in The Alarum (Vol. 1, No. 3, 3 November 1886, p. 7) was another society scene called 'Child of the Period'.

C.H. Shannon, 'Child of the Period'
(The Alarum, 3 November 1886, p. 7)

Sitting at a dining table are six people: two men, three women and a girl, attended by a servant who is pouring wine. The woman on the left hand site of the table is the mother of the child who says:

'I don't like mutton, Mamma.'

Mother: 'Think of the poor children who would only be too pleased to have it.'

Child: 'But if they don't have it, how do you know they like it, Mamma?'

676. A Series of Cartoons by Charles Shannon (1)

Between 20 October 1886 and 12 March 1887, a weekly satirical magazine was published of which only one copy has survived (in the British Library). It was called Alarum, subtitled: A Panorama of the Times. Its headpiece showed a running trumpeter and in the foreground the figure of Britannia resting next to a shield with the Union Jack. The slogan ‘Awake! Arise!! or be for ever fallen!!!’ appeared below the title. Priced one penny, it was printed on the day of issue by the firm of Page, Pratt, & Turner at 5, 6 and 7 Ludgate Circus Buildings, next door to the Alarum Newspaper Company which was housed at No. 4. 

The Alarum, Vol. 1, No. 1, 20 October 1886

The 'Introduction' to the first issue stated: 'Why are we a novelty? Because not a single member of our staff, from the Editor to the office-boy, receives a farthing for his services', and: 'Our sole ends and aims are for your instruction and amusement'. 

Charles Ricketts contributed five drawings starting with the first issue. Shannon's drawings appeared from number 2 tot number 4. All his drawings were dated ('86'). Their friend Reginald Savage published one drawing in the second number. The authorship of the captions and texts of these drawings has not been ascertained. The magazine ran a competition for cartoons and the winning illustration was rewarded with publication and a prize of one pound. Both Ricketts and Shannon published more than one drawing in one of the issues, which must mean they were rewarded in another way, or they hoped to attract attention of other magazines for paid work. They discontinued their collaboration after 10 November 1886.

Charles Shannon, illustration in The Alarum, Vol. 1, No. 2 (27 October 1886)

Shannon's first illustration is set in a large garden with a pond, a group of ladies near terrace steps and, in the foreground, under the shade of a tree, three women and a child seated at a table or on a bench. The girl asks: 'Do you like babies? We have one at home.' A 'guest'  answers: 'Your dear little brother?' And the girl says: 'You can have it if you like, but don't tell mama.' 

It is a well-balanced realistic drawing, and although Shannon would depict women and children often in his lithographs and paintings, at the time of this drawing he was mostly painting religious scenes of saints in watercolour.

675. A Bibliographical Alphabet

The last book published by the Vale Press was a bibliography of its publications, compiled by Ricketts who was not a bibliographer. Distributed in 1904, 250 copies were printed on paper and ten on vellum. John Lane sold 75 copies that were destined for America.

A Bibliography of the Books Issued by Hacon & Ricketts (1904)
[Living Histories, The University of Newcastle, Australia]

I have traced the current location of 122 copies of A Bibliography of the Books Issued by Hacon & Ricketts in libraries and museums. There are paper or vellum copies in the following cities (excluding 4 copies in private collections):

A

Adelaide, SA (Australia): 2 copies

Albany, NY (USA)

Amherst, MA (USA).

Amsterdam (The Netherlands)

Ann Arbor, MI (USA)

Athens, GA (USA)

Austin, TX (USA): 2 copies

B

Berkeley, CA (USA)

Berlin (Germany)

Birmingham (Great Britain)

Boston, MA (USA): 3 copies

Brooklyn, NY (USA)

Buffalo, NY (USA)

C

Cambridge (Great Britain): 2 copies

Cambridge, MA (USA): 1 copy + 1 vellum copy

Canberra, CT (Australia): 2 copies

Canton, NY (USA)

Cardiff (Great Britain)

Cedar Falls, IA (USA)

Charlottesville, VI (USA)

Chicago, IL (USA): 2 copies

Clairemont, IL (USA): 2 copies

Cleveland, OH (USA)

Clinton, NY (USA)

Colorado Springs, CO (USA)

Columbia, MO (USA)

Columbus, OH (USA)

D

Dallas, TX (USA)

Davis, CA (USA)

Detroit, MI (USA)

Dublin (Ireland)

E

Edinburgh (Great Britain)

G

Glasgow (Great Britain): 2 copies

H

The Hague (The Netherlands): 2 copies

Hanover, NH (USA)

Hartford, CT (USA)

Haverhill, MA (USA)

Houston, TX (USA)

Hull (Great Britain)

K

Kalamazoo, MI (USA)

L

Leuven/Louvain (Belgium)

Lexington, KY (USA)

Liverpool (Great Britain)

London (Great Britain): 3 copies + 1 vellum copy

Los Angeles, CA (USA): 2 copies

M

Madison, WI (USA):2 copies

Mainz (Germany)

Manchester (Great Britain): 3 copies + 1 vellum copy

Melbourne, VI (Australia)

Middletown, CT (USA)

Minneapolis , MN (USA)

Minnetonka, MN (USA)

Montréal, QC (Canada)

N

New Haven, CT (USA): 3 copies

New York, NY (USA): 4 copies

Newcastle, NS (Australia)

Normal, IL (USA)

Northampton, MA (USA)

Norwich (Great Britain)

O

Oakland, CA (USA): 2 copies

Oberlin, OH (USA)

Oxford (Great Britain): 2 copies

P

Philadelphia, PE (USA)

Princeton, NJ (USA)

Providence, RI (USA): 2 copies

Provo, UT (USA)

R

Reading (Great Britain)

Richmond, VI (USA): 2 copies

Rochester, NY (USA)

S

Sacramento, CA (USA)

St. Louis, MO (USA)

Salt Lake City, UT (USA)

San Francisco, CA (USA): 3 copies

San Marino, CA (USA)

Santa Barbara, CA (USA)

Seattle, WA (USA)

Stanford, CA (USA)

Swarthmore, PA (USA)

T

Tempe, AR (USA)

Toronto, ON (Canada)

U

Urbana, IL (USA)

V

Vancouver, BC (Canada)

W

Washington, DC (USA): 4 copies

Waterville, ME (USA)

Wellesley, MA (USA)

Wellington (New Zealand)

West Lafayette, IN (USA)

Williamstown, MA (USA)

Winnipeg, MB (Canada)

A Bibliography of the Books Issued by Hacon & Ricketts (1904)
A rather cropped copy on Internet Archive
[from the collection of the Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA (USA)]

Ranked by country:

Australia: 6

Belgium: 1

Canada: 4

Germany: 2

Great Britain: 21

Ireland: 1

The Netherlands: 3

New Zealand: 1

USA: 83

How many copies were sold in the USA in the first years after publication cannot be ascertained, but in later years, probably especially in the rich post-World War II period, many copies ended up in university libraries and other collections, more than the 75 copies intended for America.

Of the traced copies, more than 66% are in American libraries. Europe holds only 23% of all copies. More than 96% of all copies can be found in English-speaking countries.

(These findings cannot be separated from my dependence on cataloguing systems such as WorldCat:  for the time being locating copies in South America, Asia and Africa, for instance, remains extremely time-consuming.)

674. Four studies for Hermes

And yet again, an original drawing by Charles Shannon is on sale, this time in London at Roseberys in the auction of Old Master, British & European Pictures on 9 July. Lot 513 is described rather briefly as 'Studies of male nudes'.

The drawing is done in black and red chalk on paper and has a modest size: 24.7 x 34.2 cm. It is not dated but signed with initials ‘CS’ (lower left).

Charles Shannon, studies for a male nude (undated)

Actually, they are not studies of different male models, but clearly four variations for one figure.

In the centre is the largest sketch of a hunched and moving man who has raised his arms above his shoulders and neck. A separate sketch of the head is drawn in the lower right-hand corner. Top left is a study of his bent left arm. Below is a sketch of his other arm holding a staff.

The unusual pose and sketch of the arm with staff betrays the subject of this sketch: it is a portrait of 'Hermes and the Infant Bacchus'. Shannon counted this mythological theme among his favourites. He made at least three oil paintings with this subject in the thirty years after devoting a lithograph to it in 1897: 'The Infancy of Bacchus'.

Charles Shannon, 'The Infancy of Bacchus', lithograph, 1897

[British Museum: 1899,0321.10]

[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

Obviously, in the lithograph the image is mirrored. The three paintings are all tondos in different sizes.

1.

‘Hermes and the Infant Bacchus’ (31 in. by 31 in.)

Date: 1906 [exhibited 1907].

Location unknown. 

2.

‘Hermes and the Infant Bacchus’ or ‘The Infant Bacchus' (78.5 x 78.5 cm; 43 in. by 43 in.)

Date: 1908.

Location: Tate Gallery, London. 

3.

‘Hermes and the Infant Bacchus’ (40 in. by 41 in.)

Date: 1926. 

Location: Usher Gallery, Lincoln 

Charles Shannon, 'Hermes and the Infant Bacchus' (1908)
[Location: Tate Gallery, London]

The leaf with studies is for one of these paintings and could date from 1905 to 1926. Roseberys' estimate is £500-£700 (opening bid: £340).

673. A Pre-Raphaelite Exhibition in Forli

Although I have been in contact with one of the curators of an exhibition in Forli (Italy), I have missed news about the opening and it turns out that this was back in February: the exhibition ends on 30 June!

'Preraffaelliti: Rinacsimento Moderno'
[Website of the Comune di Forli (accessed 25 June 2024)]

The show in the San Domenico Museum is called: 'Preraffaelliti. Rinascimento Moderno' (see the museum's website) and contains some works about and by Ricketts and Shannon.

Curated by Francesco Parisi, Liz Prettejohn and Peter Trippi (with Gianfranco Brunelli as the general director), there are 300 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, furniture, ceramics, glass and metal works, textiles, medals, illustrated books, manuscripts and jewellery, including works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, Frederic Leighton, Frank Dicksee, Evelyn De Morgan, and Edward Burne Jones. The intention of the exhibition is to reconstruct 'the profound impact of historical Italian art on the British Pre-Raphaelite movement between the 1840s and the 1920s'. This information, however, is based on a preview on the website 'Finestre sull'Arte' (7 August 2023) - I have ordered but not yet seen the catalogue. See here for a link to a review of the show by Dennis T. Lanigan (on The Victorian Web).

Portraits of Ricketts and Shannon by Alphonse Legros (both from the Fitzwilliam Museum) are accompanied by some of their paintings, including Ricketts's 'The Deposition' (from the Bradford museum) and Shannon's 'Reaper and Sower' (see blog 639 about this theme).

Charles Ricketts, 'The Deposition'
[Bradford Art Galleries and Museums]

Postcript, 26 June 2026 

Simon Wartnaby was so kind to send me a link to an interview with two of the three curators, available on YouTube: Pre-Raphaelites: A Modern renaissance'. Ricketts and Shannon are mentioned between 54.00 and 56.00.

672. Two Portrait Drawings by Shannon

A section in Roseberys auction of 11 June - Modern British & 20th Century Art - contained a lot with two drawings by Charles Shannon, both dated 1917: a portrait of a woman and a man, probably related, but not identified.  

Charles Shannon, portrait of a woman (1917)

The woman wears a necklace with a pendant. The portrait, signed with initials and dated 1917 is executed in chalk, and measures 32 by 22 cm.

The portrait of the man is identically executed, signed and dated, and somewhat larger,  measuring 33 by 22 cm.

Price of the drawings was £577.

671. Is This a Shannon Painting?

On 30 May last, a painting attributed to Charles Shannon was auctioned at Cuttlestones. It was called ‘A Gentle Walk’ and described as: 

CHARLES HAZLEWOOD SHANNON (1863-1937). A young girl and her grandfather taking a walk in an ornamental garden with dog following behind 'A Gentle Walk', see verso, signed with monogram lower right, oil on canvas (relined), framed, 91 x 69 cm

CS, 'A Gentle Walk' (oil, undated)

The estimate was £300-500, the closing bid was £950. 

In his early days, Shannon's style was not fixed, and all kinds of subjects that he would not paint later passed by, from landscapes to religious scenes.

Monogram CS, 'A Gentle Walk' (oil, undated) (detail)

Personally, I do not find this attribution to Shannon convincing. The monogram in the lower right hand corner is CS, but Shannon in his earlier days actually always used three letters: CHS. I think the work is by an entirely different painter.

670. Some of Ricketts's Binding Tools

Throughout the 1980s, numerous exceptional pieces related to the Vale Press and Charles Ricketts were offered through antiquarian booksellers Warrack & Perkins. Some of these can no longer be traced. Among these is a copy of the bibliography of the Vale Press, published by Ricketts after the closure of the firm of Hacon & Ricketts.

In Catalogue Forty-Four, Autumn Stock Catalogue (Autumn 1982) a copy of the bibliography from the collection of Harold Wilmerding Bell was described, and priced at £400. Bound in brown levant morocco gilt, by Riviere, it had Bell's arms gilt-stamped on both covers. It contained:

a sheet of india ink and white bodycolour designs by Ricketts for binding ornaments, each annotated by Ricketts and with directions to the cutter. Inscribed on the mount: 'Given me by Charles Ricketts 7 x 28 H W Bell (Designs for binding tools)'

At the time it remained unsold, and was offered again in a later catalogue, Illustrated Books, Prints and Posters 1880-1914, Catalogue 56 (1985) for £375.

Sybil Pye, binding for G.D. Hibson, Thirty Bindings (1926)

Of course, it is not the Bell copy of the bibliography that interests me, but the inserted sheet with designs of some binding tools with comments by Ricketts. The sheet turned up on 21 March 2005 at a Christie's auction in New York (the first part of the Breslauer collection), but by then it was no longer in a copy of the bibliography, but in an edition bound by Sybil Pye: G.D. Hobson's Thirty Bindings, selected from the First Edition Club's seventh exhibition, held at 25 Park Lane, by permission of Sir Philip Sassoon, Bart (London: The First Edition Club, 1926). Bound in 1944, the volume's current location is not given in Marianne Tidcombe's Women Bookbinders.

The sheet with Ricketts's designs is now probably to be found in a private collection.

A little more information can be gleaned from the first catalogue in which Warrack & Perkins offered the sheet of designs. Indeed, Catalogue Forty-Four has a cover on which one of the binding tools is depicted eighteen times, while inside are other tools which we can compare with the tools Pye received from Ricketts (illustrated in Tidcombe's book, p. 207).

Warrack & Perkins, Catalogue Forty-Four, Autumn Stock Catalogue (Autumn 1982): cover (detail)

The design repeated on the cover was never used by Ricketts and perhaps the tool was never made; in any case, it is not among the impressions of the tools Ricketts gave to Pye.

Charles Ricketts, design for a binding tool
(from Warrack & Perkins, Catalogue Forty-Four,
Autumn Stock Catalogue, Autumn 1982)

Two other designs were executed and among the Pye tools impressions.

Charles Ricketts, design for a binding tool
(from Warrack & Perkins, Catalogue Forty-Four,
Autumn Stock Catalogue, Autumn 1982, p. 26)

The design illustrated (twice) on page 26 of the catalogue is listed by Tidcombe as tool no. J2B.

Charles Ricketts, design for a binding tool
(from Warrack & Perkins, Catalogue Forty-Four,
Autumn Stock Catalogue, Autumn 1982, p. 12)

Another design for a binding tool was illustrated (twice) on page 12 of the Warrack & Perkins catalogue. This one is No. J5A in Tidcombe's Women Bookbinders.

In terms of style, the first design, the previously unknown heart-shaped design, belongs to the devices Ricketts designed for the binding of Lord de Tabley's Poems Dramatic & Lyrical (March 1893).

669. Charles Shannon Starts Designing Oscar Wilde's Plays

Tomorrow, at Forum Auctions, a number of letters, contracts, and notes regarding Oscar Wilde will be for sale. (See  Forum Auction). Among those is a letter from Charles Shannon to John Lane about the design of Oscar Wilde's plays. 

Charles Shannon, letter to John Lane, c. May 1893
[Forum Auctions, London]

This letter was first partly quoted by James G. Nelson in his 1971 study The Early Nineties. A View from the Bodley Head (Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1971). At the time, the letter was still in the archive of the Bodley Head Firm. The letter was probably written in May 1893.

Charles Shannon, letter to John Lane, c. May 1893
[Forum Auctions, London]

The Vale | Chelsea

Dear Lane,

Oscar called tonight. He decided very wisely I think that the plays Lady Windermere's Fan etc. should be published at 7/6 net with a limited Edition de luxe at 1 guinea instead of the uniform price at 10/6. These you can announce simply in this way.
In a binding & title page specially designed by Charles Shannon.
With regard to the W.H. he has also decided, we think wisely, that the 500 should be published at more than 10/0 (he thinks 15/0 on reconsideration we think 12/6 might be more wise). The book alone is worth 10/- apart from its get-up. It would be a mistake to allow very delicately fashioned books to go too cheap and its paper & format might do much.
This week can be announced Mr WH etc by Mr. Oscar Wilde with Initials & a binding designed by Charles Ricketts
Oscar says Lady Windermere which is to be the first of the series is to come out at once during the Season[.]
Oscar is averse of the idea of them being all bound in the same cover. Let me know when you have the material of Lady Windermere in hand & I will take it to the Ballantyne the next day.
The order of plays is
1. Lady Windermere's Fan
2. The Duchess of Padua
3 The Woman of No Importance
You had better write to him concerning the proper order.
Yours faithfully
CH Shannon

Charles Shannon, letter to John Lane, c. May 1893
[Forum Auctions, London]

However, the series of plays called Dramatic Works did not take off immediately. The first volume (Lady Windermere's Fan) was published in November 1893. The announced edition of The Duchess of Padua did not appear, nor did The Incomparable History of Mr. W.H. that was to be designed by Ricketts.

Shannon would be responsible for the design of the book, including the graphic design, but his wish to have the books printed at Ballantyne's - where their own magazine The Dial was printed -  was not met by the publisher who had them printed at R. and A. Constable in Edinburgh.

The two plays published at the Bodley Head, later followed by two more plays that were published by Leonard Smithers, would be bound in similar, but distinctly different mauve bindings, as Wilde had demanded.

PS, 31 May 2024

The lot was sold for £4.500.

668. Charles Ricketts Plants a Love Tree

Recently I reread all the catalogues of Claire Warrack & Geoffrey Perkins who offered mainly British and continental books from the 1880s-1920s, including many by and about the Vale coterie, including letters, ephemera publications and prints. 

One of these catalogues (Catalogue Sixty-one issued in 1987)  includes a description of Paul Verlaine's Romances sans paroles, an 1887 reprint. The provenance of this copy is fascinating. Charles Ricketts wrote on the title page: 'Cs Ricketts | The Vale | His Book'.

Charles Ricketts, ownership entry and drawings in

Paul Verlaine, Romances sand paroles (1877)

[© With permission of the executors of the Charles Ricketts estate,

Leonie Sturge-Moore and Charmain O'Neil]

He gave this copy to John Gray, who had translated some poems by Verlaine, and who added his own bookplate with several Latin phrases such as 'E Bibliotheca' 'Domine Tu' and 'Omnia Nosti'. A later owner was A.J.A. Symons whose Brick House bookplate was pasted on the free endpaper, and there is a note by the famous dealer George Sims.

But the point is the first leaf of the book on which Ricketts wrote his name. In fact, he did more than that, he added two original pen drawings in india ink. The bottom one of these is a small decoration, but the other is an important drawing.

This drawing is related to several drawings Ricketts made for Oscar Wilde's A House of Pomegranates, and a tentative assumption would be that the drawing dates from 1891. It is not the central figure we recognise from other images, as the sad harlequin does not appear in Wilde's book; it is the writhing thorn branches that recur in several drawings, for example on page 23 where 'the young king' is compared to Christ.

Charles Ricketts, illustration for Oscar Wilde,
A House of Pomegranates (1891, p. 23)

Wilde's young king wore a 'leathern tunic' and a 'rough sheepskin cloak' and when his page asks him 'but where is thy crown?', he 'plucked a spray of wild briar', and 'made a circlet of it, and set it on his own head' (pp. 20-21). In the book illustration he is seen on the back.

Charles Ricketts, decoration for Oscar Wilde, 
A House of Pomegranates (1891, p. 59)

For the book Ricketts also designed several roundel devices, some of which were used a few times. This device of a rose, a heart and thorny rose branches was used solely on page 59. 

Charles Ricketts, illustration for Oscar Wilde, 
A House of Pomegranates (1891, p. 149)

Even more thorny branches are depicted in an illustration for Wilde's story 'The Star-Child'. This illustration of the star-child and the hare in a trap (p. 149) is signed by Ricketts: 'CR inv et del.'

In the case of this book by Wilde, attention is often focused solely on Shannon's plates (because of their technique and its partly unsuccessful execution in Paris), but Ricketts' illustrations are worth a closer look, if only because they can be divided into six types (excluding the decorative binding). There are decorative endpapers, chapter devices, illustrations, marginal circular devices, pomegranate ornaments and initials. 

Charles Ricketts, original drawing in a copy of
Paul Verlaine, Romances sand paroles (1877)

The words in the original drawing 'J'ai planté un arbre d'amour' do not refer to a line by Verlaine, but to the first line of the 18th ballad by François Villon: 'J’ay ung arbre de la plante d’amours'.

The whereabouts of Verlaine's book with Ricketts's drawings is unknown.

667. Edward Woodville Ricketts's Album

Charles Ricketts was not fond of his father, but his grandfather was a different story. His house was hung full of art that Ricketts remembered many years later. Edward Woodville Ricketts (1808-1895) was also a skilled draftsman as we saw almost 140 blogs ago: he made an etching depicting the bell tower of Seville (read blog 528: Ricketts Grandfather in Seville). 

Yesterday, another 302 pencil and pen drawings and watercolour paintings came up for auction at  Chiswick Auctions, all demonstrating his talent.

Edward Woodville Ricketts, Album (c.1829-1860s)
[Chiswick Auctions, 14 May 2024]

The album contains 152 sheets on which most of the drawings are mounted, often several on a sheet, sometimes folding panoramas, while some drawings are loosely inserted. The album captures several of Ricketts's travels. There are landscapes, panoramas, coastal views and images of ships (grandfather Ricketts was a keen yachtsman).

Edward Woodville Ricketts, Album (c.1829-1860s)
[Chiswick Auctions, 14 May 2024]

But there are also portraits, costume drawings and images of architecture and plants. Some travel destinations were in Spain: Madrid, Toledo, Seville - as we saw earlier - Alameida, The Alhambra, Alhama, Loxa, Gaucin (with a view of Gibraltar and Africa), Algeciras, Ceuta, Tarifa, and Ricketts travelled on to Morocco where he drew the mosque of Tangier. This was a 1833 journey.

Edward Woodville Ricketts, Album (c.1829-1860s)
[Chiswick Auctions, 14 May 2024]

There are drawings of steam locomotives at Liverpool, of Bala Lake, the lighthouses at Pierhead, portraits of horses, ships that are firing salutes, and a view of Dover Castle.

Edward Woodville Ricketts, Album (c.1829-1860s)
[Chiswick Auctions, 14 May 2024]

Ricketts also made drawings in Smyrna (now Izmir), Athens, Rouen, Nice, of the Mont Blanc, the Eiger and even of a Dutch gunboat seen in 1849. The album was estimated at £500 - £700. It sold for £750.