Sir James Jebusa Shannon, R.A., R.B.A. (1862-1923)

The Offering features Shannon’s only child Kitty (1887-1974, christened Katherine Marjorie Shannon), who frequently sat to him in childhood. The crucifix, along with the halo effect of the plate against which Kitty’s profile is positioned, lend a quasi-sacred meaning to the image and reveal the influence of the artist’s association with the American painters George Hitchcock (1850-1913) and Gari Melchers (1860-1932) with whom he spent many summers in Egmond aan den Hoef, Holland, from roughly 1892 to 1905. The painting originally showed a beautiful young woman to whom Kitty offers the vase of ranunculus (symbolising radiance). In 1983 the artist’s granddaughter explained that Shannon’s wife Florence had angrily cut down the painting, excising the figure of the woman from the composition. The work was one of five paintings by Shannon included in the important exhibition of Irish art organised by Sir Hugh Lane held at the Guildhall Gallery, London, in 1904.