Lot Essay
Rothenstein reminisces about the artists Ricketts and Shannon in Men and Memories (London, 1931, p.173): 'I was especially attracted by Ricketts and Shannon - they were so different from any artist I had met hitherto. Everything about them was refined and austere. Ricketts with his pale, delicate features, fair hair and pointed gold-red beard looked like a Clouet drawing. Half French, he had the quick mind and the rapid speech of a southerner. He was a fascinating talker. His knowledge of pictures and galleries astonished me; he had been nowhere except to the Louvre, yet he seemed to know everything, to have been everywhere. And he knew the names of rare flowers, of shells and of precious stones'.