Blake, William | A complete suite of the "Job" engravings, beautifully matted individually

Blake, William

Illustrations of the Book of Job. Invented & Engraved by William Blake. London: Printed as the Act Directs March 8: 1825 by William Blake [i.e., 1874]

Twenty-two post-proof line-engravings engravings by Blake (title-leaf and 21 plates) on china paper (206 x 154 mm, slightly variable), mounted on unmarked wove paper sheets (505 x 345 mm, slightly variable). Individually matted and housed in an attractive brown buckram folding-case with a facsimile of the original binding label on front cover.

A handsomely presented suite of Blake's remarkable engravings for the Book of Job. These engravings were begun by Blake in 1821—although he had been working on drawings of Job's story for more than three decades at that point—at the suggestion of his friend John Linnell, who hoped to help the artist secure a degree of self-sufficiency. According to Bentley, 215 proof sets were issued in 1826, with title plate dated 1825. The present set is from the 1874 re-issue. Linnell's son wrote to Bernard Quaritch in 1892, explaining how the plates came to be issued again after the 1826 sets were offered: "Mr. Linnell then put the plates away, & they were never again used after this time until the year 1874. At that time my father wishing to have some prints ["i.e. not proofs" Bentley] of the Job to offer for sale, (the original 100 copies having long since been exhausted) he had 100 copies printed from the plates upon India paper. … The above named impressions, taken at the two dates specified, are all that have been taken from the plates, of the Job. My father considered the plates at the last were as good as they ever were, for the work being cut with the graver, and not etched, it is durable—and is not worn by the printing as is the case with an etching." The original plates survive today in the collection of the British Museum.

"Rather than using the customary "mixed method" of preliminary etching followed by engraving, Blake used pure line engraving in the Job plates. Perhaps one of his motivations was to evoke the art of the master engravers of the Renaissance whom Blake greatly admired, such as Albrecht Dürer. The Job engravings are generally considered to be Blake's masterpiece as an intaglio printmaker" (The William Blake Archive).

This set was exhibited in "William Blake and the Age of Aquarius" at the Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 2017 (catalogue, Princeton University Press), and was matted by the Block's conservation department.

REFERENCES

Bentley, Blake Books 421; cf. Michael Phillips, William Blake: Apprentice & Master (Ashmolean, 2014), pp. 183–197