AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY VOLUME 30 NUMBER 4 SPRING 1997 &}UB AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY VOLUME 30 NUMBER 4 SPRING 1997 CONTENTS Articles Blake in the Marketplace, 1996 by Robert N. Essick 100 William Blake and His Circle: A Checklist of Publications and Discoveries in 1996 by G. E. Bentley, Jr. With the Assistance ofKeiko Aoyama for Japanese Publications 121 CONTRIBUTORS SUBSCRIPTIONS are $50 for institutions, $25 for individuals. All subscriptions are by the volume (1 year, 4 issues) and begin with the summer issue. Subscription payments re• G. E. BENTLEY, JR., now retired from the University of ceived after the summer issue will be applied to the 4 is• Toronto, compiled this checklist at Durham University, put sues of the current volume. Foreign addresses (except it into final form in Beijing, and corrected the proofs at the Canada and Mexico) require an $8 per volume postal sur• Australian Defence Force Academy. He is now completing charge for surface, an $18 per volume surcharge for air a biography of William Blake. mail delivery. U.S. currency or international money or• der necessary. Make checks payable to Blake/An Illustrated ROBERT N. ESSICK, Professor of English, University of Cali• Quarterly. Address all subscription orders and related com• fornia, Riverside, has been writing sales reviews for this munications to Patricia Neill, Blake, Department of En• journal for 25 years. glish, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627. BACK ISSUES are available at a reduced price. Address Patricia Neill for a list of issues and prices. EDITORS MANUSCRIPTS are welcome. Send two copies, typed and EDITORS: Morris Eaves and Morton D. Paley documented according to forms suggested in The MLA BIBLIOGRAPHER: G. E. Bentley, Jr. Style Manual, to either of the editors: Morris Eaves, Dept. REVIEW EDITOR: Nelson Hilton of English, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627; ASSOCIATE EDITOR FOR GREAT BRITAIN: David Worrall Morton D. Paley, Dept. of English, University of Califor• nia, Berkeley, CA 94720-1030. PRODUCTION OFFICE: Patricia Neill, Department of English, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627 INTERNATIONAL STANDARD SERIAL NUMBER: 0160-628x. Blake/ MANAGING EDITOR: Patricia Neill An Illustrated Quarterly is indexed in the Modern Language TELEPHONE 716/275-3820 Association's International Bibliography, the Modern Hu• FAX 716/442-5769 manities Research Association's Annual Bibliography of PRODUCTION OFFICE EMAIL: [email protected] English Language and Literature, The Romantic Movement: A Selective and Critical Bibliography (ed. David V. Erdman Morris Eaves, Department of English, University of Roch• et al.), American Humanities Index, Arts and Humanities ester, Rochester NY 14627 Citation Index, Current Contents and the Bibliog• Email: [email protected] raphy of the History of Art. Morton D. Paley, Department of English, University of California, Berkeley CA 94720-1030 © 1997 Copyright Morris Eaves and Morton D. Paley Email: [email protected] G. E. Bentley, Jr., 246 MacPherson Avenue, Toronto, COVER ILLUSTRATION: A tattoo based on Europe, pi. 1 ("The Ontario M4V 1A2. The University of Toronto declines to Ancient of Days") on the left leg of Charles A. Bufalino, forward mail. Riverside, California. Photo by Robert N. Essick, digitalized and enlarged by J. Sullivan, Sept. 1996. Nelson Hilton, Department of English, University of Geor• gia, Athens, GA 30602 Email: [email protected] David Worrall, St. Mary's College, Strawberry Hill, Waldegrave Road, Twickenham TW1 4SX England Email: [email protected] INFORMATION MAKE /AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY is published under the spon• sorship of the Department of English, University of Roch• ester. ARTICLES lengthy Dark Figures in the Desired Country: Blake's Illus• trations to The Pilgrim's Progress (Berkeley: U of Califor• nia P, 1993). But matters of aesthetic quality, particularly Blake in the Marketplace, 1996 in comparison to other works by the same artist, and ques• tions of attribution can be killers in the marketplace. Fur• ther, one of the time-honored rules of auctioneering is to avoid offering at auction anything that has been recently BY ROBERT N. ESSICK and aggressively flogged to most potential bidders. For once, my predictions proved prescient: the bidding failed to reach he year started propitiously for the Blake market with the "reserve"—that is, the price below which the auction• Tthe early January sale of two drawings, An Encounter eer will not sell the lot (a price that may be lower, but by in Heaven and a sheet of two recto/verso preliminary de• custom should not be higher, than the low estimate of signs for Commins's Elegy. These works, all previously re• £260,000). However, immediately after the auction two col• produced in this journal and thus not repeated here, were lectors—one English, one American—expressed consid• exchanged from one private owner to another through the erable interest in the Bunyan designs at a price somewhat New York dealer Salander-O'Reilly Galleries. The market less than the low estimate. A brief post-auction bidding then went flat. Very flat. The usual run of books with Blake's skirmish ensued. The anonymous English collector won. copy engravings turned up in dealers' catalogues at their There are, of course, a few other matters to report, mostly normal rate, but nothing appeared through the spring and under the category of Blake's paintings and drawings. In• summer to excite more ambitious collectors. The fall deed, I have nothing at all to list under the illuminated brought forth a richer harvest. On 14 November, Sotheby's books. I have as well several retrospective listings, includ• in London offered, in a single lot, Blake's 28 water colors ing a colored copy of Young's Night Thoughts and a major from the Frick Collection illustrating John Bunyan's water color by Blake. My apologies for being so tardy in Pilgrim's Progress (Butlin #829.1-19, 21-29)—see illus. 1-4. reporting the whereabouts of these works. The lot also included a late water color illustration of the The year of all sales and catalogues in the following lists first temptation from Milton's Paradise Regained (Butlin is 1996 unless indicated otherwise. The auction houses add #546)—see illus. 5. Thus, the entire Frick holdings of Blake their purchaser's surcharge to the hammer price in their were placed on the market as a collection with a published price lists. These net amounts are given here, following the estimate of £260,000-340,000. As far as I can determine, official price lists. The value added tax levied against the this was the largest deaccession of works by Blake from any buyer's surcharge in England is not included. Late 1996 sales institutional collection. My own pre-sale prediction (I keep will be covered in the 1997 review. I am grateful for help in trying to be a Blakean prophet, in spite of a poor track compiling this review to E. B. Bentley, G. E. Bentley, Jr., record) was decidedly negative: the lot would surely be David Bindman, Roger Cucksey (Newport Museum and bought-in (i.e., not sold). My reasons were several. Art Gallery), Detlef Dorrbecker (who supplied me with his Sotheby's had been trying, on behalf of the Frick, to sell own list of 1996 Blake sales, from which I have stolen shame• the water colors privately for about two years (promises of lessly), Morris Eaves, Sandra Ericson (Muhlenberg Col• confidentiality prevented me from reporting this in earlier lege), Jenijoy La Belle, Thomas V. Lange, Nick Lott, Kim- sales reviews). Every potential Blake collector was contacted. berly Orlijan, Giles Peppiatt of Bonhams, Lawrence All said no. The major reason for the negative response was, Salander, William L. Schneider, Grant F. Scott, Miriam I believe, the low quality of the work. Just compare Blake's Stewart (Harvard University Art Museums), and John Milton or Job designs with the Bunyan series from a Windle. Once again, Patricia Neill's editorial assistance and connoisseur's perspective; the results are depressing. I sus• John Sullivan's electronic imaging have been invaluable. pect that Blake was feeling the effects of his fatal illness when he was sketching the Bunyan illustrations c. 1824-27. A shaky hand, awkward figures, poorly-balanced composi• Abbreviations tions. In spite of these problems, one Blake collector with the means to make an impact on the market was enthusi• BBA Bloomsbury Book Auctions, London astic at first glance. He was then shown Butlin's entry on Bentley G. E. Bentley, Jr., Blake Books (Oxford: the series; passion turned to disappointment in a matter of Clarendon Press, 1977). Plate numbers and copy seconds. As Butlin points out, there are very good reasons designations for Blake's illuminated books follow to think that much of the coloring was supplied by Mrs. Bentley. Blake, perhaps after her husband's death. These sorts of is• Butlin Martin Butlin, The Paintings and Drawings of sues seem to have no effect on literary scholars writing William Blake, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale UP, about the meaning of the designs—witness Gerda Norvig's 1981). cat. catalogue or sales list issued by a dealer 100 Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly Spring 1997 (usually followed by a number or letter designation) or auction house (followed by the day and month of sale) CE Christie's East, New York CL Christie's, London CNY Christie's, New York CSK Christie's, South Kensington illus. the item or part thereof is reproduced in the catalogue pl(s). plate(s) SL Sotheby's, London SNY Sotheby's, New York st(s). state(s) of an engraving, etching, or lithograph Swann Swann Galleries, auctioneers, New York # auction lot or catalogue item number Illuminated Books Nothing to report.