INDEX

About the series

Plates and images

Source of images and copyright

PLATES AND IMAGES

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Individual Plates and Images:

Plate I. ...and like a corse fell to the ground.
Plate II. ...seiz'd on his arm/And bore away the sinewy part.
Plate III. ...so turn'd/His talons on his comrade.
Plate IV. ...lo! a serpent with six feet/Springs forth on one
Plate V. He ey'd the serpent and the serpent him.
Plate VI. ...The two I mark'd that sat/Propp'd 'gainst each other
Plate VII. "Wherefore dost thou bruise me?" weeping he exclaim'd.

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ABOUT THE SERIES

The volume of artist's proofs of seven plates, described here, is in the Preston Blake Collection held by Westminster Libraries and Archives. There are two printed notes pasted inside the cover (from a catalogue?) one lists the plate captions with references, and also refers to Cary's Dante. The other states: Blake's Illustrations of Dante. Seven Plates, designed and engraved by W. Blake, Author of "Illustrations of the Book of Job," &c. &.Artist's Proofs, only 25 copies printed.

The captions are in pencil bottom right outside the plate mark. The plate numbers (1-7) are also in pencil inside the bottom right corner of the plate mark.

Blake was working on 102 drawings with watercolour and seven engraved plates of illustrations of Dante's Inferno, both of which were unfinished at the time of his death in 1827. The engravings, and those of the Book of Job were commissioned by John Linnell. Archibald Russell catalogues this series as No. 34 in The Engravings of William Blake and writes that the work of engraving was begun in 1826. In February 1827 Blake wrote to Linnell "I go on, as I think, improving my engravings of Dante more and more and shall soon get proofs of these four which I have; and beg the favour of you to send me the two plates of Dante which you have, that I may finish them sufficiently to make show of colour and strength." On 25th April he wrote "I am too much attached to Dante to think much of anything else. I have proved the six plates, and reduced the fighting devils (Plate III) ready for the copper."

Milton Klonsky, in Blake's Dante, The Complete Illustrations to the Divine Comedy, reports that Linnell claimed the drawings and the seven engraved plates following Blake's death. The Linnell family Blake collection was auctioned at Christie's in London on 15 March 1918. The seven copper plates were sold privately and are (1980) in the collection of Lessing J. Rosenwald at the Alverthorpe Museum, Jenkintown, Pennsylvania.

Klonsky also suggests that whilst not the only source available Blake probably relied to a large extent on the Reverend Henry Cary's translation of Dante's terza rima into Miltonic blank verse, which appeared in 1814.

SOURCE OF IMAGES AND COPYRIGHT

The images in this series in the Motco Enterprises Limited database were photographed digitally by Motco from the volume in the Preston Blake collection held by the City of Westminster Libraries & Archives.