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The Angel of the Divine Presence Bringing Eve to Adam, ca.1803. William Blake (British, 1757–1827). Watercolor, pen and black ink over graphite on paper. Rogers Fund, 1906 (06.1322.2).
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More about the Objects on View
Engravings such as Job (1793, The Keynes Family Trust) and Edward and Elenor (1793, The British Museum), and illuminated books including America, a Prophecy (1793, The British Museum, National Gallery of Art, and the Library of Congress), The Daughters of Albion (1793, Library of Congress), the Book of Thel (1789, The Pierpont Morgan Library), and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790, The Pierpont Morgan Library), among others, reveal the broad scope of Blake's imagination and illustrate his unique iconography. Blake listed them, and more, in his 1793 Prospectus of works offered for sale in his Lambeth workshop. At the time, Lambeth was a poor London neighborhood where Britain's most radical politics found expression in the age of the French and American revolutions. Blake's illustrated books, which have traditionally drawn wide appeal—including The Songs of Innocence and of Experience—were shown in this exhibition, and were interpreted within the context of the political upheavals and social concerns of the era.
Blake's dark prophetic vision was represented by a series of large color prints, ca. 1795–1804. Each of these majestic monoprints is unique, pulled from a design painted on copperplates or millboard, and worked up in pen and ink. Presented without texts, these powerful images take their monumental figures from literary sources such as the Bible, Milton, and Shakespeare, as well as Blake's own imaginative universe.
View a checklist of works on display in "William Blake" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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