Prints

The Night of Enitharmon's Joy

Type: Prints(Opens in new tab)
Date: 1795
Accession number: 000.126
Maker: William Blake(Opens in new tab) (British, 1757–1827)
Dimensions: image: 16 1/4 × 21 3/4 in. (41.3 × 55.2 cm.) sheet: 16 5/16 x 22 in. (41.5 x 55.9 cm.)
Medium: planographic color print with pen and ink and watercolor on laid paper printed planographically with gum or glue based pigments (brown, green, mustard yellow) and finished with pen and ink outlining and watercolors
Description: There are two other impressions of this design, now in the Tate Gallery and the National Gallery of Scotland (Butlin 1981, Nos. 316-17). In comparison to the much more highly furnished Tate version, the Huntington example is considerably trimmed, particularly along the bottom edge. The eyes of the front-most figure on the right are more downcast than in the other versions, and there are numerous minor differences in details of the hair and hand positions. The left foreleg of the ass is more clearly delineated in the other versions. A pencil sketch of the design, in reverse, is in the collection of Ian Phillips, London (Butlin 1981, No. 319). The Huntington version was probably part of the group of Blake's drawings George Richmond showed to John Ruskin in the early 1840s. Ruskin briefly took possession of them and then returned the lot to its owner, the dealer Joseph Hogarth. The technique Blake used to print "Hecate" and his other color-printed drawings was first described by Frederick Tatham. He stated that the medium was oil and the printing body "thick millboard." The first assertion is clearly wrong, and we now know that one color print, "God Judging Adam," was printed from a copperplate etched in relief. None of the versions of "Hecate" shows indentations from the edges of relief plateaus, and thus they were probably printed from either an unincised copperplate or millboard. Several of the color-printed drawings were dated 1795 by Blake, and this is probably the date of printing (although not necessarily of hand finishing) of at least one version of each of the 12 subjects. However, one example of the three known impressions of "Newton" (Tate Gallery; Butlin 1981, No. 306) is on paper watermarked 1804. It is a moot point as to whether Blake's color-printed drawings should be classified as prints or drawings, but the discovery that "God Judging Adam" is a relief etching indicates that these works evolved out of his activities as a printmaker.
Credit: The Huntington
Department: European Art
Find out more: View in the Art Museum catalog(Opens in new tab)

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The subject of this work has traditionally been identified as Hecate, the Greek goddess of magic and witchcraft. One of a group of twelve large color prints that Blake began in 1795, Hecate is not technically a drawing. Blake’s process, however, is a hybrid of the two practices, involving much more handwork than a typical print. To make it, he drew the image on a board, working quickly so that the colors did not dry before it was pressed to a sheet of paper. Once the image was printed, Blake added pen and ink and watercolor to it. Here, he has used the reticulated texture along the lower edge, created when he pulled the sheet away from the board (an accident of the printing process), to indicate vegetation (2022).

The Night of Enitharmon's Joy

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