William Blake

Robert Cromek,
by inheritance to his widow;
Thomas Sivright,
his sale, Edinburgh, C.B. Tait, 10 February 1836, lot 1835 (part of lot);
possibly John Stannard (1795-1881),
by family descent until with Caladonia Books, Glasgow, by 2001;
sale, New York, Sotheby's, 2 May 2006, lot 5

G.E. Bentley, Blake Records, New Haven and London 2001, pp. 482-83, note 58;
M. Butlin, Blake, An Illustrated Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 3, Winter 2002, p. 71
 

The drawing and support are in generally excellent condition. Primary support: Fine, smooth surfaced (hot-pressed), light weight, white wove paper, laid down to the mount. Design: Traces of graphite underdrawing. Subtle, transparent watercolor washes in blue, pink, yellow, green and brown applied broadly and in minute strokes. Contours and details drawn above the watercolor in fine quill pen and black and gray ink. Artist's corrections and modifications to modulate tone by reductive techniques (lifting the watercolor by light scraping or sanding to reveal minute points of white paper) in the interior of the church, in the pathway in front of the church, and throughout the sky, but most notably at the upper left. Condition: A few minute accretions, possibly glue spots or fly specks: in the right finger of the male, in the center of the foreground above the worm, and the lower part of the young woman's dress, in the left spire of the church. The colors are vibrant and are in excellent tonal balance. There is no discoloration in the support. Mount: Dark gray-brown, wove paper paste board composed of two or three sheets of paper laminated together by the artist or the colorman-supplier. This thinner and darker type pasteboard is similar to that used for two other mounts (lots 15 and 16) A decorative wash border and ink lines surround the primary support. Surface dirt and staining in the margins from handling, notably at the upper right, right side, lower left; darkening along the right and lower left edges
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This watercolor and that in lot 110 below both originate from a group of nineteen works by William Blake that were rediscovered in 2001 in a small bookshop in Glasgow and that subsequently appeared at auction at Sotheby's, New York on 2 May 2006. These designs, which had been preserved in a leather portfolio, were linked to a commission that Blake received in 1805 from Robert Cromek, asking him to provide illustrations for a new edition of Robert Blair's epic, 767-line poem, The Grave. Despite being largely unknown today, The Grave, which was first published in 1743, had gone through 47 editions by 1798. Cromek wanted to produce a grander version than had ever been printed before: a deluxe edition, in imperial quarto with large illustrations. Much confusion remains over the exact number of designs Blake created for Cromek's project, but current scholarship suggests that he completed twenty-two or twenty-three watercolors, of which twelve were then engraved by Louis Schiavonetti. The Grave was finally published in July 1808 and had more than 500 advance subscribers, including many of the most prominent artists of the day. The re-emergence of the group was described by the distinguished Blake scholar Martin Butlin as ‘arguably the most important since Blake began to be appreciated in the second half of the nineteenth century.’

The present design was not engraved for publication but it illustrates a specific passage in the poem in which Blair dwells on the transience of physical beauty:

Methinks I see thee with thy head low laid; Whilst, surfeited upon thy damask cheek; the high-fed worm, in lazy volumes roll’d, riots unscar’d. For this was all thy caution?

These lines fall within a larger section of the poem in which Blair portrays death as the great equalizer. In Blake's interpretation the young beauty seems well-aware that her charms are fleeting. She points to her cheek and to the worm on the ground while her suitor gazes into the empty grave. The radiant sunset reinforces the idea of time's swift passage.

As in Blake's The Widow Embracing Her Husband's Grave at the Yale Center for British Art (fig. 1), the setting is contemporary and conventional. The graveyard and the Gothic entrance to the church are strikingly similar to those in that work, though here they are seen from different viewpoints. The figures themselves seemed to have stepped from one illustration to another, pausing only to put on or remove their hats. 

Blake's treatment of the young woman is extremely refined. He delicately models her limbs with gray brush strokes and a few accents of pale blue, then adds touches of pink to her cheeks, breast, elbow and neck. Blake's handling of the young suitor, or stripling - as Blair calls him - is more summary, drawing his clothing with bold brush strokes and using just the pencil to indicate the details of the front of his costume. The young man himself is a figure type that Blake used throughout his career, from the early Songs of Innocence to the Job engravings.