Details
BLAKE, William (1757-1827). The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Plates 25-7, A Song of Liberty (Bentley 98, copy L; Bindman 106-8).
relief etchings, printed in dark brown ink, ca. 1790, the three plates printed (pls. 25-6 back to back) on one folded sheet of laid paper, watermark C Ball, pl. 25 apparently a unique impression of the first state (of two) before the removal of the words 'and bow thy reverend locks' in paragraph 6, with margins, the sheet with three deckle edges, minor staining
P. 152 x 102mm. and smaller, overall S. 215 x 345mm.
PROVENANCE:
John Linnell; Christie's, 15th March 1918, lot 197, 'Blake (William) A Song of Liberty, 3pp. 4to, being pages 25 to 27 of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, printed in black, on 4to paper' (11 guineas to Tregaskis, who paid 8½ guineas for lot 198 'ANOTHER COPY, without the 8-line Chorus at the end, printed in black, on 8vo paper'). Lots 197-8 in the Linnell sale were bought on commission for Frank Rinder for both are described with prices and a commission levy of (2 on a Tregaskis receipt dated 16 March 1918 for which payment was received just three days later. Lot 198, Bentley's untraced copy M, was presumably sold by Rinder at a later date. Mrs Rinder's annotations on the Rinder collection wrappers mistakenly suggest that the sheet came from the Edward Dowden sale of 1916
By descent to the present owner
LITERATURE:
G. R. Bentley, Jr., Blake Books, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1977, pp. 287, 301.
D. Bindman, The Complete Graphic Works of William Blake, Thames & Hudson, London, 1978, p. 470, pl. 25 repr. p. 65.
Bentley records nine full copies of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell all of which are now in public collections. In addition he records a total of twenty impressions from fifteen of the plates; eleven of these impressions are in public collections, five are untraced with only four others, including the three here, remaining in private hands.
relief etchings, printed in dark brown ink, ca. 1790, the three plates printed (pls. 25-6 back to back) on one folded sheet of laid paper, watermark C Ball, pl. 25 apparently a unique impression of the first state (of two) before the removal of the words 'and bow thy reverend locks' in paragraph 6, with margins, the sheet with three deckle edges, minor staining
P. 152 x 102mm. and smaller, overall S. 215 x 345mm.
PROVENANCE:
John Linnell; Christie's, 15th March 1918, lot 197, 'Blake (William) A Song of Liberty, 3pp. 4to, being pages 25 to 27 of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, printed in black, on 4to paper' (11 guineas to Tregaskis, who paid 8½ guineas for lot 198 'ANOTHER COPY, without the 8-line Chorus at the end, printed in black, on 8vo paper'). Lots 197-8 in the Linnell sale were bought on commission for Frank Rinder for both are described with prices and a commission levy of (2 on a Tregaskis receipt dated 16 March 1918 for which payment was received just three days later. Lot 198, Bentley's untraced copy M, was presumably sold by Rinder at a later date. Mrs Rinder's annotations on the Rinder collection wrappers mistakenly suggest that the sheet came from the Edward Dowden sale of 1916
By descent to the present owner
LITERATURE:
G. R. Bentley, Jr., Blake Books, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1977, pp. 287, 301.
D. Bindman, The Complete Graphic Works of William Blake, Thames & Hudson, London, 1978, p. 470, pl. 25 repr. p. 65.
Bentley records nine full copies of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell all of which are now in public collections. In addition he records a total of twenty impressions from fifteen of the plates; eleven of these impressions are in public collections, five are untraced with only four others, including the three here, remaining in private hands.