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William Blake (English, 1757–1827)
1805

Medium/Technique Black ink and watercolor over graphite on paper
Dimensions 29.5 x 38.9 cm (11 5/8 x 15 5/16 in.)
Credit Line Museum purchase with funds donated by contribution
Accession Number90.104
NOT ON VIEW
ClassificationsWatercolors

Catalogue Raisonné Butlin 196
ProvenanceThomas Butts (b. 1757 – d. 1845), London; by descent to Thomas Butts, Jr., London; June 29, 1853, Butts sale, Foster and Son, London, lot 101, sold to J. C. Strange, Highgate, for £0.16.0; sold or consigned by Strange to Bernard Quaritch, Ltd., London; August 1883, offered by Quaritch as part of item 13842, catalogue 350, for £1,200 [see note 1]; 1890, sold by Quaritch to the MFA. (Accession Date: April 29, 1890)

NOTES:

NOTE 1: A group of 17 Blake watercolors and drawings for John Milton's Comus and Paradise Lost, as well as 9 Biblical scenes, were first offered together in Bernard Quaritch's catalogue 350, August 1883. The group did not sell, and was offered again in October 1883, May 1885, May 1887, and early 1890, when the works were shown in the United States, as advertised in A Hand-List of a Peerless Collection of Books and Manuscripts exhibited to the Bibliophiles of America. The Blakes were priced at £1,000 or $5,000.