The Samuel Butler Collection at Saint John's College, Cambridge Part 4

THOMAS SADLER

62. Water-colour drawing of the Vecchietto in the Deposition Chapel at Varallo-Sesia.

63. Water-colour drawing in black and white of a boy with a basket at Varallo.

Sadler made these two drawings about 1890 from photographs taken by Butler in 1888.

SAMUEL BUTLER

64. Water-colour: copy of a landscape behind a small Madonna and Child by Bartolomeo Veneto, signed and dated 1505.

I forget the precise date, but I think it was about 1898, when Butler was searching in real landscape for the original of the castle which appears in the background of one of the Giovanni Bellini pictures of the Madonna and Child in the National Gallery, the one with the bird on the tree and the man ploughing. It may now be attributed to some other Venetian painter. He would have been pleased if he could have found the original of the background of any picture by one of his favourite painters. This copy was made to fix in his mind the castle on the hill, which he hoped afterwards to identify with some real place. But he never succeeded.

HENRY FESTING JONES

65. Water-colour: Jones's chambers in Staple Inn, Holborn. 1899.

66. Water-colour: another view in the same room. 1899.

In these rooms Butler nearly always spent his evenings from 1893, when I moved into them, until the end of his life. The frames of these pictures are veneered with oak from the Hall of Staple Inn, and into each are inserted two b.u.t.tons showing the wool-pack, the badge of the Inn, which is said to be named from the Wool-Staplers.

When Butler and I were on the Rigi-Scheidegg with Hans Faesch in 1900 I had these two sketches with me, and was showing them to the landlord, who spoke English. He looked at them and considered them carefully for some moments. Then he said gravely "Ah I see; much things. That means dustings; and then breakings; and then hangriness."

SAMUEL BUTLER

67. Water-colour: Meien near Wa.s.sen on the S. Gottardo. 1896.

We went often to Meien to sketch when we were staying at Wa.s.sen on the S.

Gottardo. We took our lunch with us, and ate it at the fountain in the village. "The old priest also came to the fountain to wash his shutters, which had been taken down for the summer, and it was now time to bring them out again and replace them for the winter" (_Memoir_, II. 236). The house on the left is the priest's house, and the shutters are already up at one of his windows.

68. Pen and ink sketch: Trapani and the Islands from Mount Eryx about 1897.

This sketch is reproduced in _The Auth.o.r.ess of the Odyssey_, ch. ix. He did it to show the situation of Trapani and the Islands with Marettimo "all highest up in the sea." In the Odyssey Ithaca is "all highest up in the sea," and Butler supposed that the auth.o.r.ess in so describing it was thinking of Marettimo.

69. Wash drawing: Trapani and the Islands from Mount Eryx about 1898.

He wished to make a more complete version of no. 68, but this was as far as he could get; there was not enough time and there were too many interruptions.

70. Pencil sketch inscribed, "Calatafimi, Sund. May 13th, 1900. 2 hours. Eleven a.m. is the best light."

I added "S. Butler." He could not continue because there came on a terrific scirocco which lasted two or three days.

71. Water-colour: Taormina, the Theatre and Etna. 1900.

This shows the fragments of the stones that are strewn about in the orchestra which Butler said were like the fragments of My Duty towards My Neighbour that lay strewn about in his memory. It would take a lot of work to put them all back into their places and reconstruct the original.

(_Memoir_, II. 292.)

72. Water-colour: Siena. 1900.

73. Water-colour: Pisa, inside the top of the Leaning Tower. 1900.

74. Water-colour: Wa.s.sen. 1901.

75. Water-colour: Wa.s.sen. 1901.

76. Water-colour: Trapani, S. Liberale and Lo Scoglio di Mal Consiglio.

1901.

See _The Auth.o.r.ess of the Odyssey_. The Scoglio is the ship of Ulysses which Neptune turned into a rock as she was on her way home to Scheria.

77. Rough sketch by Butler of the islands Marettimo, Levanzo, and Favignana.

Two views showing how Marettimo is hidden by Levanzo when you are below and comes out over Levanzo when you are up Mount Eryx.

HENRY FESTING JONES

78. My first attempt in colour to draw the islands from Mount Eryx.

I saw I should not have time to finish it, and, instead, did no. 80.

79. A volume of thirty-four leaves of drawings in pencil and ink.

I did all these under Butler's auspices, and often he was sitting near doing another sketch of much the same view. It may be said that they are the work of his pupil.

80. Drawing in pencil and ink: Trapani and the Islands from Mount Eryx.

1913.

Reproduced in the _Memoir_, ch. x.x.xii.

SAMUEL BUTLER AND OTHERS