LOT DETAILS

Materials:

Watercolor with pen and black ink over traces of pencil

Size Notes:

506 by 403 mm; 20 by 15 7/8 in

Edition:

This recently discovered drawing has caused great excitement amongst William Blake scholars. Martin Butlin, who published the seminal reference book The Paintings and Drawingsof William Blake (1981), firmly believes that the work is by Blake, arguing that it belongs to a series of copies Blake made in 1822 for his friend John Linnell - after the set of twelve Paradise Lost watercolors that he had earlier painted for Thomas Butts in 1808.1 The Butts watercolors are now widely dispersed and the prototype for the present lot is held at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston.2The image depicts Book 4, lines 799-819, from John Miltons epic poem, in which the angels Ithuriel and Zephon keep guard over the sleeping Adam and Eve in order to protect them against Satan who, having taken the form of a frog, has made his way into the garden of Eden.

Description:

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Markings:

Attributed to William Blake