Accession number
PML 196219
Creator
Blake, William, 1757-1827.
Published
[London] : [The Author & Printer W Blake], [1789]
Credit line
Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2016.
Notes
Two plates removed from Blake's Songs of Innocence, copy W.
Copy W recorded in 1940 as comprising 22 plates in total.
Illustrations and text etched in relief with white-line etching.
Printed in black ink on one side of wove paper. Etching borders mostly wiped free.
No watermark; however, a J Whatman watermark, positioned vertically, is present on Bentley plate 23 of the copy from which these prints derive.
Remnants of three stab holes along left edge--the upper hole is 5 cm from the top, the middle 3.7 cm below that, and the bottom hole 3.7 cm below the middle.
Plates hand-numbered in pencil 4 and 5 (not by Blake).
Offset from a print of "Infant Joy" visible on verso of image 2 (Bentley 7); most of the text of "Infant Joy" is faint or not apparent, with the exception of the title.
Image 1 (Bentley 6): 106 x 68 mm on sheet approximately 200 x 118 mm; Image 2 (Bentley 7): 106 x 67 mm on sheet approximately 201 x 117 mm.
Copy W recorded in 1940 as comprising 22 plates in total.
Illustrations and text etched in relief with white-line etching.
Printed in black ink on one side of wove paper. Etching borders mostly wiped free.
No watermark; however, a J Whatman watermark, positioned vertically, is present on Bentley plate 23 of the copy from which these prints derive.
Remnants of three stab holes along left edge--the upper hole is 5 cm from the top, the middle 3.7 cm below that, and the bottom hole 3.7 cm below the middle.
Plates hand-numbered in pencil 4 and 5 (not by Blake).
Offset from a print of "Infant Joy" visible on verso of image 2 (Bentley 7); most of the text of "Infant Joy" is faint or not apparent, with the exception of the title.
Image 1 (Bentley 6): 106 x 68 mm on sheet approximately 200 x 118 mm; Image 2 (Bentley 7): 106 x 67 mm on sheet approximately 201 x 117 mm.
Description
2 prints : illustrations ; approximately 200 x 118 mm
Inscriptions/Markings
Pencil inscription "JW3" on verso of image 1; "JW4" on verso of image 2. Additionally, see note about offset above.
Provenance
Early history unknown; sold as "property of a nobleman," Hodgson's 28 June 1940 lot 260, acquired by "private"; sold Sotheby's London 30 April 1941 lot 641 to the book dealer B.F. Stevens; acquired thereafter by a private American collector, unnamed.
Summary
These prints of "The ecchoing green" are part of what were likely the early proofs, or the first two or three copies, of Songs of Innocence to go through the press, dubbed copy W by Keynes. This copy was printed in tandem with copy U and possibly with copy V (now untraced). Like copy U, copy W was printed in black ink on the rectos of comparable Whatman paper with similar overinking, smudges, and splatters, 3 stab holes, etching borders wiped mostly free. The priority of copy U and copy W is based on their being the only recorded copies to include the first state of "Infant Joy" (cf. Viscomi) .
Binding
Originally bound into wrappers (contemporary stab holes); described at auction in 1940 as having a "morocco cover"; described at auction in 1941 as "wrappers, loose in morocco binding"; according to bookseller, the leaves had been glued by this time into thick paper wrappers dating from the early twentieth century and placed in a folder; now matted and housed in case.
Classification
Catalog link
Department