Lot Essay
The title comes from the 1939 Philadelphia catalogue and refers to Exodus, XXXIV, 31-2: Moses talks to 'the rulers of the congregation...And afterwards all the children of Israel came nigh'. The drawing has been reworked above Moses' head. The woman on the reverse wears a sort of 'Egyptian' headress. The figure, set in some kind of architectural framework, could possibly be one of the Sybils, inspired by the figures of Michaelangelo in the Sistine Chapel; Blake made copies of one of the companion prophets, together with six of the ancestors of Christ, all from Ghisi's engraving after the original frescoes (Butlin, op. cit., p. 64-5, nos. 167-70, illustrated pls. 205-11).
This is one of a group of early drawings in pen and wash, roughly dateable in that certain of them are related to Blake's exhibits at the Royal Academy in 1783 and 1785 (see Butlin, op.cit., pp. 26, 54-5, 59-60); this example particularly dates from the final half of the 1780s.
This is one of a group of early drawings in pen and wash, roughly dateable in that certain of them are related to Blake's exhibits at the Royal Academy in 1783 and 1785 (see Butlin, op.cit., pp. 26, 54-5, 59-60); this example particularly dates from the final half of the 1780s.