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

Maker (British, 1757 - 1827)
Additional Title(s)
  • Genesis manuscript [no. 9 of 11 leaves]
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
    Illustrated manuscript of Genesis : Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
    William Blake
    ca. 1826-1827
    Object number: 000.37
    Illustrated manuscript of Genesis : The creation of Eve
    William Blake
    ca. 1826-1827
    Object number: 000.38
    Illustrated manuscript of Genesis : second title page
    William Blake
    ca. 1826-1827
    Object number: 000.33
    Illustrated manuscript of Genesis : first title page
    William Blake
    ca. 1826-1827
    Object number: 000.32
    Illustrated manuscript of Genesis : The creation of Adam
    William Blake
    ca. 1826-1827
    Object number: 000.36
    Illustrated manuscript of Genesis : Cain fleeing from the body of Abel
    William Blake
    ca. 1826-1827
    Object number: 000.41
    Expulsion from Eden
    Edward Burne-Jones
    ca. 1914
    Object number: 2000.5.796