79. Oscar Wilde between Paris and Brighton

The Java-Bode reported the one-time performance of Ibsen's Ghosts in London on 13 March 1891. It not only mentioned Shannon as a member of the Independent Theatre Society, but also noted that Oscar Wilde had come to see the play. This is interesting, as his chronology mentions that he was in Paris on 11 March and in Brighton on 16 March and what he did in between is unrecorded. 

Norman Page's An Oscar Wilde Chronology (1991) shows that on 3 March Wilde was to visit the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé, that he was very ill a few days later, that he called on Zola on the 11th of March, and the next date is 16 March, when Wilde wrote that he was staying at the Hotel Metropole in Brighton, still (or again) very ill. These dates are based on Wilde's correspondence, as are those in the online Wilde Chronology of the Oscholars.

The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde (2000) show that Wilde had been in Paris since 25 February 1891 (and possibly earlier) when he wrote to Mallarmé that he would be honoured to meet the author of L'Après-Midi d'un Faune. Apparently, Wilde suffered from the flu, as he had lost his voice, but a few days later he wrote to his son Cyril that he went out every morning for a drive in the Bois de Boulogne and that every evening he would sit outside at 'little tables' looking at the passing carriages. On 7 March he wrote to Coulson Kernahan, his editor at Ward, Lock and Co, that he had not corrected the proofs for The Picture of Dorian Gray earlier, because he had been 'very ill'. All these letters were written from the Hôtel de l'Athénée, 15 rue Scribe, in Paris.

15, rue Scribe, Paris

Wilde's next dated letter is of 16 March 1891, again to Kernahan: 'I am still very ill, but Brighton is doing me good', and he announced that he would return 'to town' (London) the next day. There was no word about the first performance of Ibsen's Ghosts that he had witnessed in between.

From the Dutch review we now know that he had been in the audience on 13 March 1891. The English papers (The Times, The Daily Telegraph, etc.) mentioned no names other than those of the actors and that of Jack T. Grein, as it would have been risky to connect any respectable individual in the audience with a performance that was considered a scandal. The papers condemned the play and asked the Lord Chamberlain to ban it. In the Dutch review Wilde's name was followed immediately by that of John Gray, see next week's blog.

Among other names that were mentioned by the Dutch eye-witness of the event are the owner of The Times, John Walter, the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Londesborough, Clement Scott (of The Daily Telegraph), and at least ten other critics. From the Republic of Letters he mentioned George Moore, Oscar Wilde, and John Gray. The House of Lords was represented by Justin Huntly McCarthy and C.P. Colnaghi, from the art world the names of Charles Shannon and the engraver Carl Henschel, the actors Madeleine Shirley, Emily Duncan, Adrienne Dairolles and members of the Playgoers Club were mentioned. The orchestra that mainly consisted of Dutch musicians, was led by the Dutch conductor  and composer Jan Mulder, and played a few pieces by Edvard Grieg. Mulder also performed at a concert at the Dutch Club and at the Savage Club. He would also be present at the October 1891 performance of The Independent Theatre Society, when Zola's Thérèse Raquin in a translation of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos was staged. George Moore had revised this translation.

78. Shannon spotted in the theatre

A new resource hosted by the National Library of the Netherlands, 'Historical newspapers', gives free access to Dutch newspapers from 1618 to 1995. Not all newspapers are available yet, but the great thing is that word searches are possible, and a search for 'C.H. Shannon', for example, yields seven results, including a very early one that was previously unknown. This article, 'Een vrije schouwburg', about the Independent Theatre, was published on 6 May 1891 in the Java-bode, a newspaper for the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). It was not written by one of their correspondents, but taken from another newspaper, Het dagblad ('The daily') of which no copies have been preserved.

Jack T. Grein

The Théâtre Libre was directed by André Antoine, but the 1891 event that mentioned this name on the programme was staged by Jack T. Grein (1862-1935), and although the article still calls his theatre production by the old name, the performance was in fact the first of a series of the Independent Theatre, a private society that could stage controversial plays using a subscription system. Grein staged Henrik Ibsen's play Ghosts on syphilis and adultary at the Royalty Theatre, at 73 Dean Street, Soho, London, on 13 March 1891. The play was considered to be 'repulsive', 'coarse', 'vulgar', 'absurd', 'revolting', you name it.

It took a few months for the event to be covered by a newspaper in the Dutch East Indies, and it probably only did so, because Grein was born a Dutchman who had emigrated to London in 1885 and was naturalized in 1895.

Another Dutchman, Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (1865-1921), lived in London and translated a few plays for the Independent Theatre, and his association with the theatre society was noticed as early as 18 April 1891, when it was reported that he would translate Emile Zola's Thérèse Raquin for Grein. Teixeira de Mattos also worked for several Dutch newspapers, and it may have been 'Tex' who wrote the review that was published in the Java-bode. Its author called himself 'The Man-about-Town'.

Portrait of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, from  Stephen McKenna, Tex. A chapter in the life of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (1922)

The newspaper story, full of banter, related how, after the performance, Grein had spoken from the stage, and it described the audience in some detail. The author tells us that the world of literature was represented by the novelist George Moore, by Oscar Wilde, by John Gray, 'the new poet', while artistic circles included 'the painters C.H. Shannon and Richard Savage', among others. Richard Savage was in fact Reginald Savage, an artist and a collaborator of Ricketts's and Shannon's magazine The Dial.

Charles Shannon, Self-Portrait (1897)

Shannon's attendance of the first performance of Ibsen's Ghosts in 1891 places him in the vicinity of 'an apostel of the beautiful' (as the Morning post mockingly called Grein in a review of Ghosts, 14 March 1891), and thus in the forefront of the battle against Victorianism and censorship, but also in an artistic circle which included Wilde and Gray, who were recognized and singled out for his report of the event by the correspondent. English newspapers noted that 'the large audience' included 'more females than might have been expected' for an unlicensed play, but Shannon's name was not mentioned. The 1891 Java-bode was the first to mention Shannon's name in the Dutch language area.

77. A Paper Wrapper for A Pageant

Book-jackets, Thomas G. Tanselle's (partly new) study on paper wrappers for books, mentions a dustwrapper for volume 2 of The Pageant, 1897, that is unusual because the book mentions the name of the designer.

Wrapper for The pageant, 1897

Usually the designers of these jackets were not identified, but then, most wrappers were only sparsely illustrated, while this one is printed in colour after a design by Gleeson White. The drawing is not signed, but his name is mentioned in a footnote to the foreword, which is also quoted by Tanselle as it calls the jacket an 'outer wrapper', showing that the nomenclature for this phenomenon had not yet chrystallized.

Gleeson White, who was the literary editor of the magazine, must have designed it in consultation with the art editor, Charles Shannon, who could have commissioned another artist, for example Charles Ricketts, who designed the binding, or Lucien Pissarro, who designed the end-papers. Apparently it was not deemed important for this magazine to follow the new rules of book design, whereby the book was seen as a unity. The designs by Ricketts, Pissarro, and Gleeson White are quite different in character, and the whole now expresses not so much the unity of the book as the intimacy of a small coterie of artists.

Wrapper for The pageant, 1897

Gleeson White's design is printed in green, red and white on thin brown wrapping paper. It illustrates a brick wall, behind which one can see a pageant, with people who are out of sight, carrying spears and banners. In the front is a row of trees, with doves and flowers. The title, the publisher's name, and the price are mentioned on the front. The spine is almost never shown. It also mentions the title and the imprint.

Spine of wrapper for The pageant, 1897

The first volume of The Pageant (for 1896) did not have a paper wrapper, and one may assume that the reason for Gleeson White's wrapper must have been the lack of sales. The second volume, in spite of its attractive colour wrapper, was to be the last of this short-lived annual for art and literature.

76. Patterned papers (h: bird and rose)

In June 1898 the Vale Press published a two-volume edition of The Rowley poems of Thomas Chatterton. For this book Ricketts designed two patterned papers, one for the boards and one for the spine. They were used on both volumes.

Charles Ricketts, patterned paper for The Rowley poems of Thomas Chatterton (1898) (vol. 2)

The paper on the boards is a pattern of 'rose and bird', according to Ricketts in his bibliography (1904). Colin Franklin, in his book The private press (second edition, 1991), identified the bird as a swallow and this may well be the case, although Ricketts's designs usually are too stylized for an exact determination.

Charles Ricketts, patterned paper for The Rowley poems of Thomas Chatterton (1898) (vol. 1) [detail]

Ricketts apparently did not really care for exactness in naming the bird, or the flower, for that matter. He said it was a rose, which is obviously true, but he does not tell us what kind of rose. The same goes for the patterned paper for Michael Field's Fair Rosamund, for which another rose and another bird (a dove this time) were drawn. 

Charles Ricketts, patterned paper for The Rowley poems of Thomas Chatterton (1898) (vol. 1) [detail]

The second paper is nameless. It has an abstract pattern of acorns and dotted triangles, that may be vine leaves, and were called 'vine-and-diamond domino' by Alice H.R.H. Beckwith (in Dictionary of literary biography, volume 112, 1991). There seem to be no repetitions, Ricketts must have engraved an entire block for it.

Earlier parts of this series about the Vale Press patterned papers:

a: Mouse and nut (Michael Drayton's Nymphidia or the Muses Elizium)
b: The Suckling rose (The poems of Sir John Suckling)

c: The ship (Fifty songs by Thomas Campion)

d: Bird, arrow and rose (Michael Field, Fair Rosamund)

e: A flowered paper (Henry Constable's Poems and sonnets)

f: Pine-cone and leaf (The sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney)

g: Wilde rose (De la typographie et de l'harmonie de la page imprimée. William Morris et son influence sur les arts et métiers) 

75. Inked impressions of quads in In the key of blue

J.A. Symonds's In the key of blue has been published in several issues and editions. I have now written about the differences in appearance (cream or blue cloth covers), the presence of a publisher's list, and the different position of the signatures on the first pages of the gatherings. Now it is time to look closer at another feature: the presence of inked impressions of quads.

A block of type without a raised letter was used for spacing between words or sentences. Occasionally these quads are worked up to the level of the printing service and may leave an inked impression on the paper. (These raised quads are sometimes called 'raised space' or 'blacks'.) They reflect, as G. Thomas Tanselle wrote, more than 'the state of the type when it was composed', as 'impressions from quads and bearers, even when they remain the same, are often the result of faulty make-ready and locking up of the forme or the action of the press itself' (see G. Thomas Tanselle, 'The treatment of typesetting and presswork in bibliographical description', in: Studies in bibliography, vol. 52, 1999).

Some copies of In the key of blue show such impressions of quads.

Inked impression of a quad visible between 'quite' and ';' in J.A. Symonds, In the key of blue and other prose essays, 1893, first edition, cream coloured cloth (p. 150, line 7)

One inked impression of a quad is visible on page 150, line 7, between the word 'quite' and the semi-colon at the end of the line. Another one is visible on page 294, last line, between the last word 'words' and the question mark.

Inked impression of a quad visible between 'words' and '?' in J.A. Symonds, In the key of blue and other prose essays, 1893, first edition, cream coloured cloth (p. 294, last line)

In some copies, however, there are no visible inked impressions of quads on these pages.

No inked impression of a quad visible between 'words' and '?' in J.A. Symonds, In the key of blue and other prose essays, 1893, first edition, blue coloured cloth (p. 294, last line)

How are these inked impressions divided over the subsequent states, issues or impressions of the book? As follows:
Both are present in:
a) the proof copy;
b) the large paper copy;
None are present in:
c) copies with the edition statement: 'Reprinted July 1893';
d) copies with the edition statement: 'Third Edition January 1896';
e) copies with the edition statement: 'Third Edition (Unaltered Reprint), October, 1918'.

The regular copies of the first edition, be they bound in blue or cream cloth, show a more varied pattern. There are:
1) copies with both inked impressions of a quad visible on pages 150 and 294: bound in cream cloth;
2) copies with an inked impression of a quad visible on page 150, but none visible on page 294: bound in cream or blue cloth;
3) copies with no inked impressions of a quad visible on pages 150 or 294: bound in cream or blue cloth.

Copies c, d and e have been printed from electrotypes. The other copies have been printed before these plates were made.

After correcting the proofs - and after removing the asterisks from the signatures - the type may have been damaged slightly during the printing process, causing the inked impressions of the quads on page 150 and 294. While regular copies of the first edition were printed, the unintended visibility of the inked impressions of the quad on page 294 may have been noticed, and this was corrected. Later, the other one was noticed and another correction took place. All blue copies show only one or no traces of these quads. This might indicate that they belong to the later copies that were printed, not to the earliest ones. This corresponds with the large-paper copies that were usually printed after the regular ones: these also show both impressions.

However, how then is it possible that the proof copy shows them already? Was more than one forme used for printing the whole of the edition? We have not yet reached our conclusion.

74. The signatures of In the key of blue

Last week I wrote about the signatures of the gatherings in a proof copy and compared them to the signatures in the regular copies of the first edition of John Addington Symonds's In the key of blue and other prose essays (1893). The first edition was published in late January 1893 and the gatherings are lettered from 'A' to 'T', but a proof copy has them lettered: 'A*' to 'T*'.

After removing the asterisks and before printing the entire edition, the signatures were  moved to the right. The 'A*' is below the letters 'na' in the word 'cinnabar'. In the regular edition the 'A' is below the letters 'ab', whether copies have a blue or a cream coloured binding.

Signature A* in a proof copy of J.A. Symonds, In the key of blue and other prose essays (1893)

Signature A in J.A. Symonds, In the key of blue and other prose essays, first edition, regular issue (1893)

This separates proof copies from the regular ones. However, there are more copies with the signature placed more to the left (under 'na'). Fifty copies of a 'Large Paper Edition' were printed on Arnold unbleached handmade paper, dated 1891. There is a limitation statement on the verso of the title page. In these copies the 'A' is also positioned below 'na' in 'cinnabar'.

Signature A in J.A. Symonds, In the key of blue and other prose essays, first edition, large paper issue (1893)

The book was reprinted in the Summer of 1893 with an edition statement on the verso of the title page: 'Reprinted July 1893'. Copies of this edition have the 'A' below the letters 'na' as well. This is true for all later editions. There was a third edition in 1896 and another reprint was issued in 1918.

Signature A in J.A. Symonds, In the key of blue and other prose essays, reprint (1893)

However, one can see that there is a small difference between the position of 'A' in the reprints in comparison with the other editions: all the reprints have the 'A' slightly more to the right than in the proof copy or the large paper edition and more to the left than in the regular copies of the first edition.

From the correspondence of J.A. Symonds we know that the publisher had stereotypes made after the first edition had been printed. On 20 March 1893 Symonds wrote: 'Since the type is moulded, there will be no question of making additions or alterations in a second edition; & the book can be printed without my seeing proofs'. James G. Nelson, in his book The early nineties. A view from the Bodley Head (1971) mentions that 'molds' were listed in a transcript of the final inventory sheets of the firm (c. 1894).

We can deduct from this that the later editions were all printed from moulds. For these the signatures of the gatherings were adjusted: the 'A' was moved slightly to the left - it should be pointed out that the signatures of all gatherings underwent these small changes.

The regular edition had been printed from type that had all signatures more to the right. It was usual to print the large paper copies after the regular edition, and this means that the signatures were adjusted three times: 
1. the asterisk was removed after the proofs had been corrected and the signature was moved to the right (below 'ab'), and the regular edition was printed; 
2. the signature was moved to the left (under 'na'), and the large paper edition was printed;
3. the signature was moved to the right (under 'na'); the plates were stereotyped.

And there is more...

73. The first issue of In the key of blue

When I wrote about the colour of In the key of blue a few weeks ago I mentioned Percy L. Babington's bibliography of the writings of John Addington Symonds. We have to reconsider part of his description of In the key of blue (no. 56 in his listing).

'List of books in belles-lettres', 1892-93, in J.A. Symonds, In the key of blue (1893)

In his note to the binding Babington mentions that some copies were bound in blue cloth, but that the main part of the edition was bound in cream coloured cloth. These share the same collation formula, which mentions that at the back a 16-page list of books issued by Mathews and Lane was inserted. According to Babington (who did not mention the exact title), this 'List of books in belles-lettres' was dated '1892-3'; in fact, the list is dated '1892-93'.

Three copies of the first edition of J.A. Symonds, In the key of blue (1893): it is difficult to find a copy in cream cloth in good condition.

Apart from this regular issue, there was a limited 'large paper issue', bound in full vellum to the same design. In these fifty copies the list of books is omitted.

It is rather puzzling to read bookseller's descriptions or catalogue entries that describe the regular cream copies as 'second issue' and the blue copies as 'first issue'. An example is a catalogue compiled by G. Krishnamurti for the National Book League in 1973: The Eighteen-Nineties. A literary exhibition. No. 642 in the exhibition was a cream copy ('buff cloth'), that was listed as: 'First edition, 2nd issue'. It should be said, that there are no separate issues; the only bibliographical fact is that there are two different colours used for the bindings of the regular issue of the first edition.

All copies in blue and in cream cloth have the same list. There were later reprints, which had other lists. More about those editions later.

There is, however, one exception. In November 1894 Elkin Mathews inscribed a copy to Miss Alice Horton. It is a copy in cream cloth and it does not have the 'List of belles-lettres' bound in at the back. The book has another irregularity, which has to do with the signatures of the gatherings, which are lettered from A to T, but in this copy the signatures are A* to T*. An asterisk has been added to the letters, which means that these were proof sheets. In the printing process these asterisks were removed after the text was corrected and before the book was printed. One can also see that the signature was moved to the right.

J.A. Symonds, In the key of blue (1893), page 1, proof copy

J.A. Symonds, In the key of blue (1893), page 1, copy in cream cloth

More details will be given in a later blog.

72. 'The best copy in the world'

In April of this year a special copy of Daphnis and Chloe, illustrated by Ricketts and Shannon, was on sale and on 9 May I reported that the book had been sold for 8.780 US$. Recently it turned up in catalogue 138 of Bromer Booksellers in Boston under a caption that emphazises its unique character: 'The best copy in the world'.

The presentation copy was inscribed by the artists to their publisher, Elkin Mathews, and is dated May 19, 1893. Thomas Sturge Moore, to whom the book was dedicated, also signed it on the dedication leaf. Added is a set of twenty-seven proof impressions of the woodcuts on twenty-six sheets, each signed by one of the artists in order to identify the designer of the woodcut. The designs were divided between the two, then all were drawn on the wood by Ricketts, and subsequently engraved by both.

Wood-engraving by C.H. Shannon, for Daphnis and Chloe, signed by Shannon (p. 37) [© Bromer Booksellers]

Bromer's website shows that the woodcuts on pages 15 and 37 were signed by Shannon. There are other copies known that identify the illustrations, one of which is in the British Museum. The Bromer copy is described as 'a scholar's copy', and the book has been extensively annotated with pencil notes on the rear blank leaves, comparing the proofs to the published illustrations. Price of the Bromer copy: US$ 14,500.

Wood-engraving by C.H. Shannon, Daphnis and Chloe (p. 33), identified and initialled by T. Sturge Moore (copy in a private collection)



Wood-engraving by C.H. Shannon or C.S. Ricketts, Daphnis and Chloe (p. 33), identified and initialled by T. Sturge Moore (copy in a private collection)



Wood-engraving by C.S. Ricketts, Daphnis and Chloe (p. 57), identified and initialled by T. Sturge Moore (copy in a private collection)

71. The Greek collection

After I wrote the blogs on Greek art and the works of Ricketts and Shannon (nos. 67, 68 and 69) I read an essay on their Greek and Roman collection in the Journal of the history of collections (vol. 24, no 3, 2012, p. 369-378). The advance access publication date of this issue of the e-journal was 19 April 2012, but through my library (the National Library of the Netherlands) access was delayed until 18 November, while the two supplementary documents are unavailable to this date. It it sometimes difficult to get access to new essays on Ricketts and Shannon, however, the author of the essay, Christina Rozeik, kindly send me the additional material, which sheds light on the acquisition history of the collection of Greek and Roman artefacts in the collection of Ricketts and Shannon that is now located in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Cover for All for art. The Ricketts and Shannon collection (1979)

The museum has always treated the donation as a treasure. The exhibition All for art, edited by Joseph Darracott in 1979, contained 232 objects from this collection, including Egyptian and Japanese art. Sixty objects from the Greek and Roman collection were described, which roughly equals 25% of all objects on display.

All for art. The Ricketts and Shannon collection, p. 38-39 (1979)

Another catalogue, edited by Eleni Vassilika, was published as a Fitzwilliam Museum handbook in 1998: Greek and Roman art. This book showed objects from the vast collection of the museum, including donations by other benefactors: individuals such as C.B. Marlay and institutions such as the Wellcome Trustees. Out of the 64 pieces that were presented twelve were from the Ricketts and Shannon bequest, which is 20%, more than from any other single collection, signalling the importance of the objects that were originally collected between 1898 and 1930 by Ricketts and Shannon. The book was dedicated to their memory.

Cover for Greek and Roman art (Cambridge, 1998)

Although their interest in Greek and Roman art started soon after they began to share rooms in 1886, they could not afford original artefacts right away. The first recorded acquisition is of some Tanagra statues in December 1898, when Shannon's diary attested that 'the weakest of the three cost us £35, the largest sum we have yet paid for a single thing', while Ricketts recorded that 'both our banking accounts vanished in this sale'. He added that the Tanagras 'proved forgeries and were given away'. A footnote in the article by Christina Rozeik, 'A maddening temptation', points out that an annotated copy of the sale catalogue shows that they paid nearly £57 in total. This is an amazing amount of money, as the artists were not that rich at the time, having been forced to move from their too expensive house in the Vale in 1894 to a dark and gloomy house in Beaufort Street in Richmond; however, by 1898 things were getting better and they moved to a pleasant house at 8 Spring Terrace in Richmond.

Rozeik describes the development of their collection as well as the restoration history of the collection. I will follow up on this story at a later date.

70. The colour of In the key of blue

Last week Paul Rassam inquired 'whether there was a reliable source for the story about the trial binding of In the key of blue'.

What is the story? Late December 1892 a new book by John Addington Symonds, In the key of blue and other prose essays was issued under the joint imprint of Elkin Mathews & John Lane, London, and Macmillan & Company in New York. Symonds (born 1840) died a few months later, on 19 April 1893, and was buried in Rome.

Charles Ricketts, cover design for J.A. Symonds, In the key of blue and other prose essays, first edition, bound in tan cloth (1893)

Charles Ricketts had been commissioned to design In the key of blue, and he delivered a cover that incorporated floral motives. The prospectus did not specify these floral decorations, but mentioned the name of the designer: 'The title-page and binding designed by C.S. Ricketts'. An early advertisement, listed in List of books in belles lettres, issued by Mathews and Lane and dated '1892-93' described it in more detail: 'with Cover (Hyacinths and Laurel) designed by C.S. Ricketts'. In a later advertisement, in Elkin Mathews & John Lane's list of new and forthcoming books, dated 1893, the 'hyacinths' were exchanged for 'blue-bells'. As hyacinths and blue-bells are common names for the same flower, this exchange seems to be meaningless. Symonds's bibliographer, Percy L. Babington, quoted the earlier description of the design in his Bibliography of the writings of John Addington Symonds (1925), as did James G. Nelson in his study of The early nineties (1971, p. 74), while Alfred L. Bush, in Wilde and the nineties opted for 'lily-of-the valley' (1966, p. 64).

Apart from the ordinary edition that was bound in 'smooth cream' or 'tan' coloured cloth, the publishers advertised a deluxe edition of 50 copies, bound in full vellum, which had the same design. However, the 'story' about the colour of the cover for In the key of blue has to do with a so-called 'trial issue', which was issued in blue cloth.

The press notices at the time of publication did not mention a blue edition, although some reviewers suggested that blue would have been a more suitable colour for a book that had the colour blue in its title. The Saturday review (14 January 1893) wrote: 'The book has a pretty decorative design of hyacinth and laurel on the cover, which is not blue.'

Babington, however, asserted that there were copies in blue cloth: 'A few copies were bound in light blue cloth, and the late Mr. Mathews informed me that the whole of the ordinary issue was to have been so bound, but that Mr. Ricketts came in and objected, making a jest about "Ricketts' Blue", and therefore the cream was substituted. Copies in blue cloth were very few, and fetch considerably more than others.'

Charles Ricketts, cover design for J.A. Symonds, In the key of blue and other prose essays, first edition, bound in blue cloth (1893)

A reliable story? It was recorded more than 30 years after the publication of In the key of blue, while Mathews's words were not written down. Ricketts never commented on the issue. And there are other issues to be dealt with. Is it true that the whole edition was to be bound in blue? Why would Ricketts have objected to a blue cover?

'Ricketts's Blue', of course, was a joke for a popular laundering aid, used for whitening, called Reckitts's blue.

Advertisement for Reckett's blue (© Frank H. Jump, 1997)

The name of 'Reckitt's blue' was frequently misspelled as 'Ricketts's blue'. I found some examples in Dutch newspapers, and others in British newspapers. Ricketts may have protested against it for several reasons. The popularity of Reckitts's blue and the likeness of the binding to the light blue colour might have reminded him of the jokes that could be made, and, what is more, had been made in the past, notably by the eminent jester James McNeill Whistler. Whistler's target had been the art critic Harry Quilter in whose magazine The universal review Shannon and Ricketts published illustrations in 1889. 

In The gentle art of making enemies (1890) Whistler wrote about Quilter as an artist 'with bird's-eye belcher of Reckitt's blue' (p. 72-73), while one of his books on art was described by Whistler: 'I saw it - a book in blue - his own, and Reckitt's - all bold with brazen letters: "Giotto by 'arry"' (p. 123). Ricketts would have remembered these phrases, and probably preferred to avoid such witticisms at his own expense.

There may have been another reason for Ricketts's protest, an artistic one. Ricketts may have asked for a cream coloured cloth, to match the vellum edition. This way, the design was more subtle, as the design in gold blends with the pale colour of the cloth. On a blue cover the gold is less subtle and can even be seen as obtrusive. Blue was not a favourite colour of Ricketts. Most of the cloths that were used for bindings with a design by him were cream, or green, or purple, and this was the only blue one.

Were there any trial bindings to comment upon? Usually there were, and in this case we know more about it from the correspondence of the author, John Addington Symonds. In September 1892 he reported to have corrected the proofs. In October 1892 he wrote to the publisher, Elkin Mathews, that he had not yet seen a design for the cover or the title-page, but by December 1892 he had: 'Book cover received. Think it admirable in design; but in colour should have preferred a ground of greyish blue with the pattern in Silver or dull gold. Could some copies be sent out in that way?' 

Later that month (20 December 1892) he wrote to tell Mathews that he was charmed by the book: 'It satisfies my every sense of what is desirable is design, binding, typography, and paper', and: 'Will you tell Mr Ricketts how greatly I admire the cover. The colour is quite right, the design lovely.'

What colour was he referring to? In another letter, dated 10 January 1893, Symonds wrote to Gleeson White: 'I wish my own work in In the key of blue were worthy of the charming cover and excellent typography. Please tell Mr. Ricketts how very much I admire his design. It is a pity, I think, that some copies have not been issued in blue.'

From this it seems possible to deduct that Ricketts had asked for a cream coloured cloth for a subtle treatment of his design, for which he apparently had not chosen to use blue or gold or silver. The author, however, took his title more literally and asked for a 'greyish blue' cover with the design stamped in gold or silver, a wish that was granted. Probably, the author received more blue than cream coloured presentation copies, as his remark about 'some copies [that] have not been issued in blue' seems to indicate. However, I have not seen a dedication copy to proof this assumption. Other presentation copies, for the press, had the cream binding, as the piece in The Saturday review testifies.

Was there a trial issue, bound in blue cloth, as opposed to the ordinary edition, bound in cream cloth? I do not think so. I have to assume that, to please the author, some copies were bound in blue cloth, while the bulk of the edition was bound in cream cloth. These copies were released simultaneously.

This, however, is not the final word. The story continues, another time, as there were more blue copies to follow and the design was to be altered for later editions.

69. Scale patterns

The decorative scale pattern dates back to ancient civilizations. Examples can be seen in any museum, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Scale pattern on a terracotta painted oil flask, ca. 640-625 BC (© The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The scale pattern occurs in several versions. On a terracotta painted oil flask, an aryballos from the seventh century BC, the scale pattern comes with dots in the centre. Others have a blank space, signs or stripes in the middle. The dotted pattern has been used for pottery in Greece since around 2500 BC.

It has been a common decorative pattern to the present day. On our recent trip to Athens we saw a modern carpet with the scale pattern in the Nikos Chatzikyriakos Gikas museum. On the top floors, where one finds the artist's library and his studio, the carpet adorns one of the rooms that are left in the original state.

Carpet, Nikos Chatzikyriakos Gikas Museum, Athens

The dotted scale pattern has also been applied on bookbindings. Charles Ricketts used it for several designs for commercial publishers in the early twentieth century. One of his lesser known designs was for a short-lived series of anthologies for John Lane (between 1907 and 1910). At the bottom of the front cover three sets of dotted scales are seen, probably representing earth - this is part of a stylized wheat pattern.

Charles Ricketts, binding for Golden thoughts from the Gospels (1907) [detail]

Ricketts used this pattern - sometimes upside down - for several books, the collected works of W.B. Yeats among them. The pattern can easily be identified on the dust wrappers for these volumes, where it is located in an architectural form, a pediment, used on all four sides of the central panel with concentric circles.

Charles Ricketts, design for the binding and dust wrapper of W.B. Yeats, Essays (1924) [detail]

To fill in the spaces left between the round forms of the scales and the straight, triangular lines of the pediments, Ricketts has added two extra dots outside the scale forms, thus illustrating that the use of an ancient pattern needs revision and original adaptations for reuse.

Charles Ricketts, design for the binding and dust wrapper of W.B. Yeats, Essays (1924) [detail]

68. A Greek pomegranate

Among the grave steles in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens is a wonderful marble one, registered as Inv.No.733. It is a marble stele, found in Larisa in 1882, 113 cm in height. We made a photograph of it, only to lose our camera the next day. However, on Flickr an image of it has been posted by Unforth.

Marble stele, c. 440 BC, National Archaeological Museum, Athens [© All rights reserved by unforth, posted on Flickr]

The stele has been described by Nikolaos Kaltsas in his book Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens (2002) (see p. 99, no. 175): 'It depicts a female figure, the dead Polyxenaia, standing and facing right with her left knee bent. She wears a chiton and a himation that also covers her head. Both garments hang in heavy, straight, severe pleats. In her right hand she holds a pomegranate, while with her left she “unveils herself”, drawing back the himation from the head. Thessalian work dating from about 440 BC.'

The name of the dead woman is written in Greek characters on the left side of the stele, and translated as 'Polyxene' on the display in the museum (the catalogue has: Polexenaia).

Grave stele of Polyxene, National Archaeological Museum, Athens (detail of a photo by Ark in Time, posted on Flickr)

The figure of Polyxene or Polyxenaia is almost 2500 years old. Such images do sometimes recur in other artefacts of a different era, or they have the ability to remind you of familiar images. While I was looking at the grave stele in Athens, earlier this month, my mind wondered and I recalled a drawing by Charles Ricketts for A house of pomegranates by Oscar Wilde (1891).

Charles Ricketts, illustration for Oscar Wilde, A house of pomegranates (1891)

In this book the figure of a pomegranate picker reappears after each story, and towards the end of the book her basket of pomegranates is filled. Of course, there is no real connection between the Greek stele and the Ricketts drawing, apart from the pomegranate, and the use of an ancient symbol. In Greece the pomegranate was known as 'the fruit of the dead'.

Charles Ricketts, illustration for Oscar Wilde, A house of pomegranates (1891)



D.G. Rossetti, 'Persephone' (1874)

Ricketts must have been familiar with Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting of Persephone, holding a pomegranate and symbolizing the seasons. In other cultures the fruit was regarded a symbol of prosperity and fertility, and Ricketts probably had these significances in mind when he drew the figure of the pomegranate gatherer for Wilde's book.

67. Ricketts in the Front Row

The last few weeks we were in Greece to visit my brother and his family, and while we toured the Attic sunny landscape, finding our way to the Artemis Brauron sanctuary and museum, or to the amphitheatre near Lavrion, ending our tour on Cape Sounion for the temple of Poseidon, we remembered that Ricketts and Shannon visited Greece only once, just over a century earlier.

Our stay at an apartment in Athens, where we fell in love with the cat of the mansion, was mainly dedicated to old stones, although we spend some time in exhibitions about twenty-century Greek culture (see next week's blog). 

Ricketts wrote about his stay in Athens and a photograph of him, sitting next to the seat of the high priest in the Theatre of Dionysos, is reproduced by Paul Delaney in his edition of Ricketts's Pages from a diary in Greece (1978), as well as in his biography (1990).

Charles Ricketts in the Theatre of Dionysos, Athens, front row, next to the seat of the High Priest (1911) [detail]

In February 1911, when there were 'parches of snow in the hollows of the scattered stones', while now, in October, there were only dry blades of grass, Ricketts described the south slope of the Acropolis:

We approach the lesser shrines on the flanks of the Acropolis. We can hear the cries of children at play near the Theatre of Dionysos.

Nowadays, these children should have paid for entering the gates surrounding these 'lesser' shrines, but still, one can hear children's voices, coming from a school building in a street nearby.

Ricketts continued:

we now stand on the marble floor of the orchestra between the proscenium (the gift of Nero) and the tiers of stone seats which were here when the plays of Sophocles and Euripides were new. The place is almost sacred to the imaginative memory. How small it seems to us with our vast modern opera houses and stages; yet this was deemed sufficient in times of genius; a lesser stage than this one was the pedestal for the tragedies of Aeschylus; in this circle were chanted the sorrows of "Oedipus at Colonus" and the agony of Phaedra; it is here that the triumphant laughter of Aristophanes rang out!

Delaney, in a footnote, remarked that the 'masterpieces of fifth century drama were performed in fact before tiers of seats constructed with earth and wood; the theatre of Dionysos was rebuilt in stone c. 330 B.C. The present stage and proscenium probably date from the reign of Nero (54-68 A.D.). The auditorium was altered under Hadrian, Emperor, 117-38 A.D.'

The seat of the high priest (with the wing-like arm-rests) and to the left of that the marble chair that Ricketts occupied for his portrait picture

There is a little snow on the proscenium; I brush away a handful of half-frozen water from the seat of the High Priest; for years the winter was bitten into this throne, which is a miracle of art. On this, the panel of Persians and gryphons may recall some actual Asian work, captured from Xerxes, formerly placed on this spot as a trophy when the theatre and its seats were of wood and not of marble as to-day.
The vestiges of the auditorium end abruptly; the grass has spread among the last seats and pedestals, placed here in the time of Hadrian, and on the naked rock our feet constantly touch splinters of marble and flakes of black pottery drifted here through centuries of ruin wrought by man and time.

We did not find any pieces of pottery; they have all found there way to museum collections, and we could not walk onto the proscenium of the theatre, which is fenced off from the public and constantly guarded by a group of attendants. Ricketts could approach the marble seats in the front row and sit down in the one next to that of the high priest. That is no longer possible.

Your blogger, in the Theatre of Dionysos, Athens, somewhere in the umpteenth row behind the seat of the high priest

The front row with the seat of the high priest, Theatre of Dionysos, Athens, 30 October 2012