Lot 6: BLAKE, William (1757-1827). Songs of Innocence. [London:] William [and Catherine] Blake, 1789.

Miniature broadsheets (one-sixteenth of double crown size): 163 x 116 mm. 12 leaves. Wove paper by Edmeads & Pine (E & P watermark in folios 5, 10 and 11). 21 RELIEF AND WHITE-LINE ETCHINGS BY BLAKE, PRINTED IN GREEN AND COLORED BY THE ARTIST. The first four plates outlined in red; occasional letters strengthened by pen, several words on pl. 27 and pl. 54 in blue ink, no doubt by Blake. COLLATION: (plate numbering as adopted by Bentley in the more standard order of Songs of Innocence and of Experience ): 1r blank, 1v pl. 2 frontispiece The Piper, 2r pl. 3 title, 2v blank, 3r pl. 4 Introduction, 3v blank, 4r pl. 5 The Shepherd, 4v pl. 9 The Little Black Boy, 5r pl. 10 TLBB continued, 5v pl. 54 The Voice of the Ancient Bard, 6r pl. 18 The Divine Image, 6v pl. 26 A Dream, 7r pl. 6 The Ecchoing Green, 7v pl. 7 TEG continued, 8r pl. 27 On Anothers Sorrow, 8v pl. 25 Infant Joy, 9r pl. 8 The Lamb, 9v pl. 22 Spring, 10r pl. 23 Spring continued, 10v pl. 11 The Blossom, 11r pl. 24 Nurse's Song, 11v pl. 12 The Chimney Sweeper, 12r pl. 16 A Cradle Song, 12v pl. 17 ACS continued. The plates printed in pairs by folio imposition on separate, aligned leaves. They measure 123 x 77 mm and slightly smaller and show text, decorative borders and pictorial illustrations. (Short split in extreme top inner blank corner of folio 1.) BINDING: early-19th-century half sheep and marbled boards, seven sets of triple fillets across the spine, SONGS tooled vertically on lettering piece in second compartment, original wove endpapers, evidence of earlier stabbing, (rebacked, original backstrip laid down, corners worn). Preserved in a late-19th-century cream fabric jacket, finely embroidered by Mrs Reginald Frampton (according to the 1925 sale catalogue). Lola F. Frampton, the wife of painter Edward Reginald Frampton (c. 1870-1923), was a trained book designer and embroiderer. Her work was exhibited at the 1914 Leipziger Buchgewerbe-Austellung. PROVENANCE: apart from the binding, there is no other evidence of early provenance -- [Sotheby's 20 November 1899, lot 116, to Quaritch] -- Edward J. Shaw, J.P. of Walsall, sold at Sotheby's 29 July 1925, lot 159 to Walter T. Spencer -- [American Art Association, 14 April 1926, lot 75 to W. Clarkson -- Edwin Grabhorn, gift from his father Dr J.W. Robertson -- [John Howell-Books 1963, catalogue 34, no. 98] -- ?duPont (Howell catalogue slip) -- purchased from Warren Howell 1978. BLAKE'S FIRST BOOK OF ILLUMINATED PRINTING. It and the subsequent color-printed and illuminated productions of his mystical and prophetic works -- from Thel to Jerusalem -- are indisputably the finest illustrated books in all of English literature. They are "livres d'artiste" avant la lettre, but fuse the content of text and pictures to a far greater degree. This extraordinary physical integration is achieved through relief etching of the copper plates, a process of Blake's own invention that combines two 15th-century techniques: xylography (illustration and text on the same woodblock) and metalcuts (relief engraving). Much of the desired artistic effect, however, needed to be accomplished by careful inking, printing, and watercoloring. How he managed all this and at the same time efficiently organized multiplication to publish commerical (albeit small) editions, is analyzed in fascinating and brilliant detail in Joseph Viscomi's monumental Blake and the Idea of the Book (Princeton University Press, 1993). Known as copy J, this is ONE OF THE FOUR RECORDED COPIES OF THE EXTREMELY EARLY GREEN-INK IMPRESSION (the others being I and X, and copy F of Songs of Innocence and Experience combined after Blake), immediately following the black-ink impression (known in two copies: U and untraced V, T being a forgery), and preceding the main print run of brown-ink impressions (16 copies: A-H, K-M, the newly discovered Z, and B - E of Innocence and Experience combined by Blake). Other brown-ink impressions were pulled in 1795 (2 copies: N and J of Songs combined after Blake) and 1802 (3 copies: O, R/Y now separated, and P of Songs combined after Blake). The designation "brown" is here used generically; the colors range to tints that have been variously described as golden-brown, orangish-brown, reddish brown, pale orange, raw sienna, yellow ochre, etc. The full complement of plates for the early impressions of Songs of Innocence is 31 (copies U, V lacking one, I, F, A-E, F lacking 4, G and H). After Songs of Experience came out in 1794 Blake transferred three plates (34-36) -- and less consistently another (28) -- from Innocence to Experience ; thus, copies K and E have 28 plates; L, M, Z and B - D 27 plates). The later impressions are naturally without plates 34-36, but they include pl. 26 again. Copy X of the green-ink impression survives with only 12 plates on 6 leaves; it was perhaps once complete. Berland copy J has 21 plates; Viscomi has demonstrated that 8 other plates from its run were used by Blake to make up Huntington copy E of the combined Songs of Innocence and Experience (plts. 13/14, 20/21, 15/34, 35/36), while the leaf containing the two plates 19/53 appears to be lost. He comments in n. 6 to ch. 24 of his recent study: "Innocence copy J, however, may not have existed as an autonomous copy in 1806; that is, the eight green impressions in Songs copy E may have come from a loose pile of green impressions and not have been "extracted" from a copy. The impressions of copy J were never stabbed, and their history is unknown before 1899 ( BB 407 [i.e. Bentley's Blake Books p. 407]). That they were finished in watercolors is not a sign that they were collated or issued, since such impressions were routinely colored in small editions and before collation. They were probably loose impressions that Tatham [the executor, who provided a home for Blake's widow and continued to market his works] inherited after Mrs Blake died. To describe copy J, then, as "incomplete" may be misleading, because the impressions that together are called "copy" J may have remained in the studio late and possibly never collated or sold by Blake as a copy." However, something is known about copy J's history before 1899: it survives in a near-contemporary binding, which unquestionably belongs; and it does show stab-holes. In addition, Innocence in copy E of the combined Songs also has stab-holes -- two sets of them even, the earlier of which appearing to match copy J's -- while Experience in the same copy seems to be without any. Copy E 's provenance goes back to Blake's faithful patron, Thomas Butts, who mostly provided for the artist's support until 1811. Butts bought his combined Songs from Blake in 1806. It may therefore be safely assumed that BLAKE CONSTITUTED COPY J HIMSELF AS IT SURVIVES TODAY. Copy X is the only other green-ink impression left in private hands, but it has just six leaves. The impressions of the relief-etched copperplates and the watercoloring in the Berland copy are of the highest quality, and ITS CONDITION IS IMMACULATE. Bentley p. 407; Keynes 34H; Keynes & Wolf p. 14; Viscomi, op. cit. ch. 24 and passim.