- Artist
- William Blake 1757–1827
- Medium
- Graphite, ink and watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- Support: 528 × 372 mm
frame: 757 × 590 × 22 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased with the assistance of a special grant from the National Gallery and donations from the Art Fund, Lord Duveen and others, and presented through the Art Fund 1919
- Reference
- N03366
Catalogue entry
N03366 The Ascent of the Mountain of Purgatory 1824–7
N 03366 / B 812 74
Pencil, pen and watercolour 528×372 (20 3/4×14 5/8)
Inscribed ‘P-g-Canto 4’ in ink b.c. and, on reverse in pencil, ‘Pg Canto 8’ turned through a right-angle b.r.
Watermarked ‘WELGAR 1796’
Purchased with the assistance of a special grant from the National Gallery and donations from the National Art-Collections Fund, Lord Duveen and others, and presented through the National Art-Collections Fund 1919
PROVENANCE As for N03351
EXHIBITED RA 1893 (19); Tate Gallery (41 xvi), Manchester (48 xvi), Nottingham (42 ii) and Edinburgh (52) 1913–14; English Painting Paris 1938 (164); Tate Gallery 1947 (59)
LITERATURE Rossetti 1863, p.221 no.102e, and 1880, p.233 no.124c; Roe 1953, pp.142–3 no.74, repr.; Bindman 1977, p.218; Klonsky 1980, p.154, colour pl.76; Butlin 1981, p.579 no.812 74; Gizzi 1983, p.154 repr. Also repr: Savoy, no.4, August 1896, p.35
This is an illustration to Purgatorio IV, 31–45, like the previous work an event before the poets have arrived at Purgatory itself; Dante calls to Virgil in his weariness on the long climb up the Mountain of Purgatory. The sun is partly covered by cloud, as in all the scenes in Purgatory, and was originally drawn emerging over the horizon. The version of ‘The Laborious Passage along the Rocks’ in the British Museum may have originally been designed as an illustration to this scene in a horizontal format (Butlin 1981, no.812 45, repr. Roe 1953, pl.45, Klonsky 1980, pl.47 and Gizzi 1983, p.125).
The graceful, echoing poses of Dante and Virgil recall those of the two brothers plucking grapes in the illustrations to Milton's Comus
of c.1801 and c.1815 (Butlin nos.527 3 and 528 3, colour pls.618 and 626).
Published in:
Martin Butlin, William Blake 1757-1827, Tate Gallery Collections, V, London 1990
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