Illustrations of the Book of Job

Formally and technically, the Illustrations for The Book of Job are arguably William Blake's most coherent and sophisticated works in the print medium. They are perhaps the most elegant expression of his very idiosyncratic style and understanding of the world, and of his boundless imagination, teeming with monsters, demons and angels. The Book of Job is an ancient Hebrew text included in both Jewish and Christian scriptures. Job was a wealthy and righteous man, ‘blameless and upright, fearing God and shunning evil’ (Job 1:1). Job’s piety is challenged by Satan, who claims that Job’s righteousness is dependent on God’s blessing, and that, should God withdraw it, Job would curse Him. God grants Satan permission to test Job, and Job is afflicted with grievous trials, losing his children, wealth and health. The narrative centres on Job’s complaint to God, in which he protests his innocence and the injustice of his fate. The Book of Job is a meditation on the mystery of human suffering and challenges the conventional notion that God rewards virtue and punishes sin. When God finally speaks in the famous concluding chapters he neither explains his reasons for Job’s suffering nor defends his justice, but instead expounds his divine wisdom and authority.
In 1821 the artist John Linnell asked William Blake to make him a copy of a set of watercolours illustrating the story of Job, which Blake had first created in 1805-06 for his patron Thomas Butts. The original watercolours are now at the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the copies for Linnell at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard. The commission was intended to relieve Blake’s precarious finances, and in 1823 Linnell had another idea to help his protégé: to create an engraved series of the subject. A contract was issued in March 1823, and Blake began to revisit his original designs. He reduced the scale of the images and sketched additional pencil studies and ideas for border designs. These sketches, originally in Linnell's collection, were sold at Christie's in 1935 and are now at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Although the engravings are dated 8 March 1825, they did not in fact appear until the following year, as stated in the original publication announcement, present in our copy. The present set is from the earliest publication. There were another 65 sets printed on French paper with the word proof, and a further one hundred on Whatman paper with the word proof erased, all as part of the First Edition. The Second Edition of one hundred copies was published by John Linnell in 1874.