Lot 275
Blake, William
Illustrations of the Book of Job
Auction: Books & Manuscripts | 01 October 2026 from 10am | Lots 253 to 285
Description
Invented & Engraved by William Blake. London: Printed as the Act Directs March 8th: 1825 by William Blake. [i.e. John Linnell, 1874]. One of 100 sets, printed from the original plates, comprising 22 line-engravings by Blake (title-leaf and 21 plates, without the word ‘Proof’) on india paper (20.6 x 15.4 cm, sizes vary slightly), mounted on unmarked wove paper sheets (50.5 x 34.5cm, sizes vary slightly), loose inside a 20th-century artist's portfolio, each leaf inside folded sheet of tissue paper, very light spotting to some of the plates and to the wove paper sheets, with later (loose) blue wrappers with details of the original label for the 1826 printing written in ink on front cover [Bentley & Nurmi, A Blake Bibliography (1964), 339]
Footnote
The 1874 reissue of Blake's important engravings for the Book of Job, originally commissioned by his friend and patron John Linnell and published in 1826 a total edition of 315 copies (comprising 150 sets of proofs on india paper, 100 sets on drawing paper, and 65 sets on French paper). According to the recollection of Linnell's son in the 1890s, the plates were put away after the 1826 edition and remained unused until Linnell decided to use them to print a new issue of 100 copies in 1874. ‘No more proofs were taken between 1874 and 1919, when [Linnell's grandson] Herbert Linnell gave the copperplates of Job to the British Museum' (Bentley).