27. 1799. 28. The Sons of God saw the Daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.' (?) [Capt. Butts.] Tempera. An old man, a woman, an angel, and six children, under a fruit-tree; the woman is a charming figure. Interesting in conception, if the subject is as surmised. 1799 (?).—St. Matthew. [Mr. W. M. Rossetti, from Mr. Butts.] Tempera. Vigorously conceived. The Angel, typically associated with St. Matthew, is showing him a roll, written with blood-red characters of the Hebrew type-the record of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Matthew starts back amazed at the riches of the grace of God. 29. 1799 (1).-St. Mark. [Mr. Thomas, from Mr. Butts.] Tempera. (?) 30. 1799.-St. Luke. [Capt. Butts.] Tempera. He holds a pen, and is accompanied by the typical bull. in surface. This picture, being dated, may be presumed to three companion-figures. Almost destroyed fix the date of the 1799 ()-St. John. [Mr. Thomas, from Mr. Butts.] Tempera. (?) 32. 1799. The child Christ taught by the Virgin to read. [Capt. Butts.] Tempera. 31. An inferior specimen. 33. Circa 1799 ().-A spirit vaulting from a cloud 34. To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus.'—SHAKESPEARE. Unfinished. See p. 138. Vol. II. The date is conjectured, from the statement (as above) that the work, one of Blake's first frescoes,' was painted many years before the date of the Catalogue (1809). Circa 1801. EIGHTEEN HEADS of the Poets. [Mr. Wm. Russell.] These heads are nearly life-sized, each painted on a separate canvas; the heads themselves almost or quite colourless, with the character of sculptural busts, the accessories mostly coloured, within decorative limits, and illustrative of the author's genius or works. An interesting series. (The statement in the text, p. 166, that the Heads are but ten in number, is inaccurate: Mr. Russell has succeeded in re-uniting the entire series.) (a) Homer. Younger than he is usually represented, and full of life; one of the finest of the set, the colour well harmonized. Bay-wreath. Curiously enough, the illustrative accessories selected are the Mouse and Frog, very cleverly done, indicating no higher achievement in poetry than the Batrachomyomachia. (6) Euripides, or another of the Greek Tragedians. A good head. Oak-wreath. Accessories from classic legend. (c) Lucan. Accessories Cæsar and the Decapitation of Pompey. (d) Dante. Vivid and grand: wreath and framing of bay, fine in decorative arrangement Accessory, Ugolino. (e) Chaucer. Accessories, the Wife of Bath, &c. (f) Spenser. Accessories from the Faery Queen, (g) Tasso. Accessories, a figure of a woman in prayer, &c. (h) Shakespeare, Like the Droeshout portrait, which Blake rated highly. Accessories, Hamlet and the Ghost. (i) Sidney. A good, portrait-like head, in armour. (j). Camoens. Undisguisedly one-eyed: good. Accessory, an anchor. (k) Milton. More than usually worked up. Wreath of bay and oak intertwined. Accessories, the Serpent holding the apple in his mouth, and a harp against a palm tree. (1) Dryden. Good; greatly dilapidated at one side. Accessory, Alexander's Feast. (m) Otway. An able, thoughtful head. Accessories, the City of Venice, unspeakably unlike it, and the appeal of Belvidera to Jaffier. (n) Pope. Wreath, ivy and other leaves. Accessories, Heloisa praying, and another female figure not easy to identify; both agreeable. (o) Young. Wreath, bramble and palm. Accessory, a figure which may stand for a Recording Angel. (p) Cowper. Still more colourless than usual. Wreath of lily-in-the-valley. Accessories, a dog and a schoolboy. (2) Voltaire. Young and extremely sprightly. The wreath is distinguished from all the others by the variety and brightness of its floral colours-honeysuckle, convolvulus, pimpernel, &c. ; a rather curious distinction, as one is not at all accustomed to associate the idea of Voltaire with any special vividness of natural beauty. Accessories, the Pucelle d'Orléans (disappointing) and some knights. (r) Hayley. A pleasing, youngish face. 35. 1801.-Portrait of Mr. Butts, Sen. [Capt. Butts.] Miniature. 36. 37. Half-length. An unpretending but by no means unsatisfactory example of miniature-painting. The sitter, with powdered hair and dark eyes, in an artillery uniform, holds a book. 1802 (?).—* Adam naming the Beasts. [Mr. Stirling, M.P. from Mr. Butts.] Tempera. Bust front face. See p. 169, Vol. I. as to this subject, as frontispiece to Hayley's Ballads. * 1802. Eve naming the Birds. [Mr. Stirling, from Mr. Butts.] Tempera. Bust front face. The pretty turn of thought evidenced in this as connected with the preceding subject will not be missed. 38. 1802.-Portrait of the Rev. J. Johnson. Miniature. See p. 165. Vol. I. 39. 1803.-The Riposo (Repose in the Flight to Egypt). [From Mr. Butts.] Described in Blake's letter, p. 193. Vol. II. The Riposo now in the possession of Captain Butts, No. 136, does not strictly correspond with the description, nor yet the one belonging to Mr. Milnes, No. 69. 40. 1803.-St. Paul preaching in Athens. Rectory, from Mr. Butts.] Colour-printed. [Mrs. de Putron, Rodmell Mentioned in the account printed at p. 256. Vol. II. 41. 1803. The Three Maries, with the Angel at the Sepulchre. [Capt. Butts.] 42. The Angel is just floating above the ground: the Maries, arrested by the sight, hold together, unknowing what to think. Very fine and mystic-looking. 1803.- The Death of the Virgin Mary-(inscribed) Then saith He to the Disciple, "Behold thy Mother!" And from that hour that Disciple took her unto his own home.' [Capt. Butts.] Im Mary has just yielded up her breath: Angels attend her bed, head and foot. Above her, and within a rainbow composed of angel-heads, stands John. pressive the figures standing out almost wholly colourless upon a more than usually high-coloured background. 43. 1803.- The Death of St. Joseph-(inscribed) Into Thine hand I commend my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of Truth.' [Capt. Butts.] The companion design to the preceding, strictly corresponding with it in such details as the rainbow. The group of Joseph tended by Jesus and Mary is a fine one, and the effect of light and colour very vivid: though the general quality of execution aimed at is not in all respects that most suitable to Blake. 44. 1803.-The Sacrifice of Jephthah's Daughter. [Capt. Butts.] The loveliness and pathos of innocent girlhood could not be more gloriously expressed than in this figure of the fair young creature, perfectly naked and rose-chapleted, kneeling upon a lofty altar, full-fronting the spectator. Swathes of rushes for burning are behind her at either side, her tambourine and lyre. Two maidens stand sorrowfully at each angle of the altar. Jephthah kneels in front, his back turned, his arms wide-spread, invoking the divine sanction upon the tremendous deed. To right and to left, clouds, here louring in brown, there blue, droop like heavy folds of curtain. This ranks among Blake's noblest designs. 45. 1803.-'I was naked.' 'Unto Adam and his Wife did the Lord God make coats of skins.' [Capt. Butts.] The Angel of the Divine Presence' (so phrased by Blake) encircles with downward arms Adam and Eve, both of whom clasp hands of humble gratitude the Eve is exquisitely modest. Palm-trees over-canopy the group; an altar burns at each side. Very fine in quality, though the execution, especially in the figures, is not carried far. 46. 1803.-Ruth, the dutiful Daughter-in-law. [Capt. Butts.] Extremely beautiful: the figures of Ruth herself and Naomi, the former clasping the latter round the waist, could not be designed with a more noble and pure simplicity. Orpah turns back. There is a good deal of landscape material in the background, of a rather primitive kind, yet pleasing. See pp. 142-3. Vol. II. 47. Circa 1803 (3).-Satan calling up his Legions-Paradise Lost. Tempera. See p. 139. Vol. II. Blake terms this and Nos. 81 and 82 Experiment Pictures.' All of them, it would seem, were free from oil-vehicle. Date conjectured, as in the case of No. 33. 48. Circa 1804 (1).-The same. [Lord Leconfield.] Tempera. Referred to at p. 139, Vol. II. An elaborate, fine, and richly-coloured example, now half-ruined. The Satan, a nude figure standing on a rock, is not like the Fuseli type in such subjects. The composition is full of figures, flames, and rocks. 49. 1804.-A man at an anvil talking to a Spirit. [Mr. Evans, Strand.] Published in the Jerusalem.' 50. 1804.-Three personages, one of them crowned, sunk in despondency. [Mr. Harvey, Cockspur Street.] Published in the 'Jerusalem,' p. 51; lugubrious in colour. In the watercolour, this very characteristic design has the names Vala, Hyle, Skofeld,' written under the figures-Vala being the crowned one. Possibly the name Skofeld is derived from the soldier Scholfield, who laid an information against Blake for seditious words. 51. 1804. The same design as the preceding. [Mr. Linnell.] Of larger size, and without the names. Very good. 52. 1805.-'After these things came Jesus and His Disciples into the land of Judæa; and there he tarried with them, and baptized.'-John iii. 22. [Mr. Bohn, from Mr. Butts.] Water-colour with pen outline. Evidently treated with a kind of symbolic bearing upon baptism as a part of the Christian scheme; Christ stands as baptizer at a font, as it were in a Church. There are several other figures. The colour is pale and sweet. The account printed at p. 256 seems to show that more than usual pains were bestowed upon this water-colour. 53. 1805.-Moses striking the Rock. [Mr. Bohn, from Mr. Butts.] Not very impressive at first sight, yet powerful in expression of the subject in the group of thirsting Israelites, some dozen or less in number. principal male figure is taking measures for helping an infant first. 54. Circa 1805.-Fire. [Capt. Butts.] The Blake, the supreme painter of fire, in this his typical picture of fire, is at his greatest; perhaps it is not in the power of art to transcend this treatment of the subject in its essential features. The water-colour is unusually complete in execution. The conflagration, horrid in glare, horrid in gloom, fills the background; its javelin-like cones surge up amid conical forms of buildings (Langham Church steeples,' they may be called, as in No. 151). In front, an old man receives from two youths a box and a bundle which they have recovered; two mothers and several children crouch and shudder, overwhelmed; other figures behind are running about, bewildered what to do next. 55. 1805.-*Plague. [Mr. Strange, from Mr. Butts.] Water-colour with pen outline. The admirable design engraved to face p. 54, Vol. I.: slight in colour. 56. 1805.-Pestilence-The Death of the First-born. [Mr. Strange, from Mr. Butts.] Water-colour with pen outline. A vast scaled demon, green and many-tinted, pours deadly influence from his outstretched arms. The figures rushing together scared, by pale torchlight, to find themselves each bereaved, are powerfully rendered. In the centre, between the demon's legs, is seen a small Israelitish house, with an Angel in the doorway. Dark effect. 57. 1805.-*Famine. [Mr. Strange, from Mr. Butts.] Very terrible and grimly quiet, though not remarkable in executive respects; the colour laid in pale. A child seeks the breast of its dead mother; a young woman paces about objectless and desolate; a man strips with his teeth the flesh off the arm of a naked corpse, while a woman, with famine-wrung features, turns away in horror. For scenery, a gaunt, leafless tree; the entrance to a savagely bare building like a sepulchre ; and unclad hills, under an ordinary sky. 58. 1805.-The Whirlwind-Ezekiel's vision of the Cherubim and Eyed Wheels. [Mr. Strange, from Mr. Butts.] Not sightly in execution, but the Eyed Wheels very curious and living. The Deity is above; Ezekiel, very small comparatively to the other figures, lies below. 59. 1805.-*Samson 1805. Samson bursting his bonds. [Mr. Strange, from Mr. Butts.] Samson has too much of an operatic aspect, yet the essentials of the subject are fully rendered. Dalilah, behind him, stares in dismay at the upshot of her conspiracy; three mailed Philistines make off to the left, crowding each other in their precipitation—an admirable group for consentaneous motion. The colour is rather neutral. 60. 1805.-Samson subdued. [Capt. Butts.] Energetic and fine in the composition and actions. Of Samson the back only is seen; he lies wholly naked, and quite hairless now save towards the nape of the neck, slumbering upon the knees of Dalilah, herself semi-nude, and with an air of triumph. Three Philistine warriors, very carelessly drawn, look in timidly from behind a curtain. Pale in colour, 61. 1805.-Noah and the Rainbow. [From Mr. Butts.] Mentioned in the account printed at p. 256. Vol. II. 62. 1805. Thou art fairer than the children of men. . . . Gird Thee with Thy sword upon Thy thigh, O Thou Most Mighty, according to Thy worship and renown.'-Psalm xlv. [Capt. Butts.] Water-colour over a strong ground of pencilling. Pale, and with a slovenly aspect, through the method of execution, though fine upon inspection. The Son of God is represented seated in heaven, reading in a book; two Angels are beside him, with grounded swords swathed in flame. These figures stand out upon a sky strong in rayed light. 63. 1805.-The Four and Twenty Elders casting their Crowns before the Divine Throne. [Capt. Butts.] A determined effort on Blake's part is evident here to realize the several features of the transcendent vision; the Divine Being, like a jasper and a sardine stone' in hue, the creatures full of eyes before and behind,' and the like. A telling success in an almost impracticable attempt. 64. 1805.-The Wise and Foolish Virgins. [From Mr. Butts.] Mentioned in the account printed at p. 256. Vol. II. 65. 1805.-The King of Babylon. Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming.'-Isaiah xiv. 9. [From Mr. Butts.] Mentioned in the account printed at p. 256. Vol. II. 66. 1805.-God judging Adam. [From Mr. Butts.] Colour-printed. Mentioned in the account printed at p. 256. Vol. II. 67. 1805-Christ appearing.' [From Mr. Butts.] Colour-printed. Mentioned in the account, p. 256, Vol. II. Perhaps connected with the Tempera (No. 164) of Christ appearing to the Apostles after the Resurrection. |