Lot 60: PROPERTY OF VARIOUS OWNERS BLAKE, WILLIAM

Illustrations of the Book of Job. London: William Blake and John Linnell, 1825 [i.e., 1826]

Engraved broadsheets (16 x 10 7/8 in.; 406 x 276 mm). Engraved title and 21 engraved plates on unwatermarked wove paper; light scattered foxing. Publisher's flexible tan boards, printed label on upper cover with manuscript correction of Linnell's address to 38 Porchester Terrace, Bayswater, and the word "French" before "Proofs," green cloth spine; upper board detached and stained, endpapers stained, spine torn, text block split in half.

PROVENANCE

Thomas G. Linnell (pencil signature, 1872 on front free endpaper)
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

Bentley/Nurmi 339; Bentley Blake Books 421; Keynes 55
CATALOGUE NOTE

First edition, descended through the Linnell family, bearing the signature of Thomas G. Linnell and the date 1872 on the front free endpaper. John Linnell commissioned Blake to produce a series of engravings, based on designs and watercolors relating to Job that Blake had made decades earlier for his patron Thomas Butts. According to Linnell's Job accounts, there were 150 "Proof" copies printed on India paper, 65 French paper "Proofs," and 100 plain copies on "drawing paper" printed after the word "Proof" had been burnished out of the lower right corner of each plate. The label of the present copy has been marked in a contemporary hand to read "French Proofs." The engravings retain the word "Proof" and are printed on unwatermarked wove paper. The label on the front cover has been emended in a contemporary hand to indicate Linnell's new address at 38 Porchester Terrace, Bayswater, where Linnell had had a house built for his family in 1829. It is quite plausible that this emendation, and that of the inclusion of the word "French" before "Proofs" on the label are in Linnell's own hand. The ownership inscription on the front free endpaper is that of Thomas G. Linnell. John Linnell, Senior had three sons, James Thomas, William and John, Jr.?all talented painters like himself?and a daughter who married the watercolor painter Samuel Palmer. Thomas G. Linnell was most likely a grandson.