WILLIAM BLAKE
(1757-1827)
 

David Pardoning Absalom

c.1800-03

pen and watercolour over black lead on paper

41.3 x 42.2 cm

inscribed: WB inv II Samuel. XIV c.33 v.

in Blake’s hand:

And Joab brought Absalom

to the King and

the King kissed Absalom

P.114

Absalom, King David’s favourite son, spent several years in exile for the murder of his half-brother before being restored to favour through the intercession of Joab, his father’s most highly regarded general.

Blake was the most imaginative and singular of all major British artists and was, moreover, as gifted a poet as a painter. He was, however, first trained as an engraver and apprenticed to James Basire (1730-1802) in 1772-9, but his reputation is due to the visionary quality (he frequently saw angels) of his illuminated books and watercolours and upon his experimental printmaking.

His originality springs – in David Bindman’s words – ‘from his religious attitudes, in his conception of the true artist as a prophet in the Old Testament tradition, granted the obligation to show mankind the way to redemption’. He met with little success until 1818 when LINNELL commissioned watercolours from him to illustrate the book of Job. Linnell was joined by VARLEY, Samuel PALMER, Edward Calvert (1803-83) and George Richmond (1809-96), in admiration of Blake, which cheered his last years.

EJ

PROVENANCE: Thomas Butts; Thomas Butts, jun.; Capt. F.J. Butts, Sotheby’s, 24 June 1903, lot 9; bought by Hamlett; sold by his widow; Carfax Gallery; W. Graham Robertson; Christies 22 July 1949, lot 15; Leger Galleries; purchased by Gallery, January 1957.

EXHIBITIONS: The Works of William Blake, London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1876, no.62; Works by William Blake, London, Carfax Gallery, 1904, no.39; Frescoes, Prints and Drawings by William Blake, London, Carfax Gallery, 1906, no.68; Watercolours from The Cecil Higgins Art Gallery Bedford, London, Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, 1962, no.26.

REFERENCES: W.M. Rossetti, Annotated Catalogue of Blake’s Pictures and Drawings, in vol. II of Gilchrist’s biography, 1863, p.225, no.126; 1880, p.132, no.47; K. Preston, The Blake Collection of W. Graham Robertson by the Collector, 1952, p.132, no.47; G. Keynes, William Blake’s Illustrations to the Bible, 1957, p.18, no.61 repr.; A. Blunt, The Art of William Blake, 1959, p.71; M.D. Paley, William Blake, 1978, pl.74; M. Butlin, The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 1981, vol. I, p.346, no.459; vol. II, pl.540; T. Wright, The Life of William Blake, vol. II, pl.62; L. Herrmann, Nineteenth Century British Painting, 2000, pp.71-2, fig.52