William Blake. 1757-1827.
Canterbury Pilgrims. 1810. Engraving and etching. Essick 16.v; Bindman 477, the fifth and final state printed in 1881 by Colnaghi but prior to the Sessler impressions. Plate 14 x 38inches ( 355 x 965mm), sheet 17 3/8 x 42 1/8 inches ( 355 x 965mm). Inscribed names of the pilgrims below the image: 'Reeve Chaucer Clerk of Oxenford Cook Miller Wife of Bath Merchant Parson Man of Law Plowman Physician. Franklin 2 Citizens Shipman The Host Sompnour Manciple Pardoner Monk Friar a Citizen Lady Abbess Nun 3 Priests Squired Yoman Knight Squire'. Title inscription, open letters: 'CHAUCER'S CANTERBURY PILGRIMS'. Signature and imprint: "Painted in Fresco by William Blake & by him Engraved & Published, October 8, 1810. We gon to Canterbury God mote you spede." Printed by Colnaghi, London, circa March 5, 1881 on India paper laid onto heavy wove paper. The etching has been recently cleaned and is in good condition. Housed in a 25 1/2 x 48 1/2-inch custom reproduction period frame. Price upon request.
"As a literary piece," it has been noted, Blake's engraving "has hardly an equal in the whole field of art." The engraving was begun late in 1809 and issued by the artist in October the following year. In his Prospectus for the issue, Blake declared that the English nation would 'flourish or decay' according to the recognition they gave him for his year's labor.
The printing plate survived, and passed after Blake's death through the estate of Blake's wife, finding its way to the collection of John Giles. Sold at auction with Giles collection in 1881, the printing plate was purchased by Colnaghi who issued restrikes on laid, India paper. By 1940, the plate was in the possession of a New York art dealer, who sold it to the wife of noted collector A. Edward Newton for her to present to her husband as a fiftieth anniversary present. After Newton's death, the plate was sold with his famed library at auction, on 16 April 1941, for the princely sum of $2300 to Charles J. Rosenbloom via his agent at the Parke Bernet sale, Philadelphia bookseller Charles Sessler. Before delivering the printing plate to Rosenbloom, Sessler had a small number of prints pulled on French hand-made paper. Although Rosenbloom only authorized 35 prints, Essick and Young identified at least ninety-one impressions. "Whereas most of the identifiable Colnaghi restrikes were flatly printed, the Sessler prints were heavily inked and printed. (Essick and Young). Rosenbloom donated the plate to Yale University in 1973. Robert Essick and Michael Young, "Blake's Canterbury Print: The Posthumous Pilgrimage of the Copperplate" in Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2, Fall 1981, pp. 78-82; Essick, Separate Plates of William Blake, XVI.
'Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims' was one of Blake's major attempts at building a reputation as a painter-engraver and achieving the sort of critical and financial success that had escaped him for so many years." "However, Blake wasn't to meet with the critical success he had hoped for and the competition created when Thomas Stothard executed a plate of the same subject, caused him to become bitter. Most contemporary connoisseurs probably found the print old-fashioned and 'Gothic' in the pejorative sense. The record of prices brought by the print at auction indicates that it has attracted strong interest from collectors only in the last few years." - Essick, pp. 8-88. Blake made substantial changes in the fourth and fifth states of this famous plate and "it is only in the last two states of the plate that we find Blake's mature artistry as an original printmaker, bringing to his largest and most ambitious single print the same techniques distinguishing his Job and Dante engravings. Robert Essick, The Separate Plates of William Blake: A CataloguePrinceton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1983.
"Working in an archaic style intended to evoke the engravings of Chaucer's time, Blake presents us with the cast of Chaucer's Tales as they begin their pilgrimage. Since Blake understood his subject so well, and wrote with such elegance, we can do no better than to use as a guide his own description of the engraving: "The time chosen is the early morning, before sunrise, when the jolly company are leaving the Tabarde Inn. The Knight and Squire with the Squire's Yeoman lead the Procession; next follow the youthful Abbess, her nun, and three priests; her greyhounds attend her. Next follow the Friar and Monk, and then the Tapiser, the Pardoner, and the Sompnour and Manciple. After this 'Our Host,' who occupies the centre of the cavalcade, and directs them to the Knight, as the person who would be likely to commence their task of each telling a tale in their order. After the Host follows the Shipman, the Haberdasher, the Dyer, the Franklin, the Physician, the Ploughman, the Lawyer, the Poor Parson, the Merchant, the Wife of Bath, the Miller, the Cook, the Oxford Scholar, Chaucer himself; and the Reev comes as Chaucer has described:- And ever he rode hindermost of the rout." The view is eastward from the Tabard in Southwark, across the Bridge from London, as Blake conceived it to have been in Chaucer's day. He based his costumes on ancient monuments and other records.
"As a literary piece," it has been noted, Blake's engraving "has hardly an equal in the whole field of art." The engraving was begun late in 1809 and issued by the artist in October the following year. In his Prospectus for the issue, Blake declared that the English nation would 'flourish or decay' according to the recognition they gave him for his year's labor.
The printing plate survived, and passed after Blake's death through the estate of Blake's wife, finding its way to the collection of John Giles. Sold at auction with Giles collection in 1881, the printing plate was purchased by Colnaghi who issued restrikes on laid, India paper. By 1940, the plate was in the possession of a New York art dealer, who sold it to the wife of noted collector A. Edward Newton for her to present to her husband as a fiftieth anniversary present. After Newton's death, the plate was sold with his famed library at auction, on 16 April 1941, for the princely sum of $2300 to Charles J. Rosenbloom via his agent at the Parke Bernet sale, Philadelphia bookseller Charles Sessler. Before delivering the printing plate to Rosenbloom, Sessler had a small number of prints pulled on French hand-made paper. Although Rosenbloom only authorized 35 prints, Essick and Young identified at least ninety-one impressions. "Whereas most of the identifiable Colnaghi restrikes were flatly printed, the Sessler prints were heavily inked and printed. (Essick and Young). Rosenbloom donated the plate to Yale University in 1973. Robert Essick and Michael Young, "Blake's Canterbury Print: The Posthumous Pilgrimage of the Copperplate" in Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 2, Fall 1981, pp. 78-82; Essick, Separate Plates of William Blake, XVI.
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