This extraordinary physical integration is achieved through relief etching of the copper plates, a process of Blake's own invention that combines two 15th-century techniques: xylography (illustration and text on the same woodblock) and metalcuts (relief engraving). They are 'livres d'artiste' avant la lettre, but fuse the content of text and pictures to a far greater degree. It and the subsequent color-printed and illuminated productions of his mystical and prophetic works - from Thel to Jerusalem - are indisputably the finest illustrated books in all of English literature. Spencer - ?duPont (Howell catalogue slip) - purchased from Warren Howell 1978.īLAKE'S FIRST BOOK OF ILLUMINATED PRINTING.

of Walsall, sold at Sotheby's 29 July 1925, lot 159 to Walter T. PROVENANCE: apart from the binding, there is no other evidence of early provenance - Edward J. Her work was exhibited at the 1914 Leipziger Buchgewerbe-Austellung. 1870-1923), was a trained book designer and embroiderer. Frampton, the wife of painter Edward Reginald Frampton (c. Preserved in a late-19th-century cream fabric jacket, finely embroidered by Mrs Reginald Frampton (according to the 1925 sale catalogue). (Short split in extreme top inner blank corner of folio 1.)īINDING: early-19th-century half sheep and marbled boards, seven sets of triple fillets across the spine, SONGS tooled vertically on lettering piece in second compartment, original wove endpapers, evidence of earlier stabbing, (rebacked, original backstrip laid down, corners worn). They measure 123 x 77 mm and slightly smaller and show text, decorative borders and pictorial illustrations. The plates printed in pairs by folio imposition on separate, aligned leaves. 54 in blue ink, no doubt by Blake.ĬOLLATION: (plate numbering as adopted by Bentley in the more standard order of Songs of Innocence and of Experience): 1r blank, 1v pl. The first four plates outlined in red occasional letters strengthened by pen, several words on pl. 21 RELIEF AND WHITE-LINE ETCHINGS BY BLAKE, PRINTED IN GREEN AND COLORED BY THE ARTIST. Wove paper by Edmeads & Pine (E & P watermark in folios 5, 10 and 11). Miniature broadsheets (one-sixteenth of double crown size): 163 x 116 mm.

William blake innocence