Illustrated manuscript of Genesis : The expulsion from Eden(?)

Maker William Blake (British, 1757 - 1827)

Additional Title(s)

Genesis manuscript [no. 9 of 11 leaves]

Collections

William Blake Collection

ClassificationsDRAWINGS

Dateca. 1826-1827

Mediumpencil on wove paper

Dimensionsimage including text: 15 x 10 7/8 in. (38.1 x 27.6 cm.) tailpiece: 3 5/8 x 6 11/16 in. (9.2 x 17 cm.) sheet: 14 15/16 x 10 15/16 in. (37.9 x 27.8 cm.)

DescriptionText of Genesis 3:15-24. The tailpiece is little more than a few undefined shapes (lower left), large curving lines (upper center and right), and more tightly-curled lines (top right). Yet these first thoughts in pencil are enough to suggest an expulsion scene illustrating verse 24, written just above it. On the title page for Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794), Blake pictured the expulsion (see RB54039). The basic format of this relief etching would seem to be repeated here on leaf 9, with Adam and Eve cowering on the left and the flames of divine wrath on the right. Alternatively, the swirling lines might indicate a whirlwind, like the one in which God appears in the thirteenth plate of Blake's Job engravings, ca. 1823-26. See also 000.13.

InscribedInscribed on verso in pencil: X57447 [the former call number for the entire manuscript]

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

Status

Not on view

Object number000.40

Terms