BLAKE'S DANTE

National Gallery Victoria

Illustrations to Divine Comedy

Dante Adoring Christ

Blake's 102 watercolor illustrations to Dante's Divine Comedy are now distributed among seven institutions and several individuals. The dispersal took place in 1918 when John Linnell's heirs parted with their legacy. The quantity of pictures prohibited individual museums from purchasing the whole set although several museums were interested in adding them to their collection. The interested parties got together what funding they could, then they arranged a system by which each got some of what they wanted according to how much they contributed to the sellers price.   

The pictures wound up going to collections in England, Australia, and the United States. The largest portion went to the National Gallery Victoria thanks to funding by the Felton Bequest . The 102 pictures were divided thus:

National Gallery Victoria - 36 - including the first choice.
Tate Gallery - 20
British Museum - 13 
Birmingham Museum - 6
Ashmolean - 3
Truro Museum - 1
Harvard Art Museum  - 4
Various private collections - 19.

The picture at the head of this post is included in those which are owned by the National Gallery Victoria. In it Blake was not expressing his own theology. Instead Blake pictured Dante's image of Christ and Dante's understanding of his own relationship to the Divine. Blake personal perception of the relationship between God and Man was totally different. Blake's Jesus willingly sacrificed himself for Mankind, and Albion (Mankind) reacted with an all consuming love and gratitude for the gift he has received. Blake himself saw Christ as gentler and more sympathetic to the rejoicing redeemed humanity than did Dante.

Jerusalem, Plate 76, Jesus & Albion

Paradiso XIV

97 I heard: “The premises of old and new

impelling your conclusion—why do you
hold these to be the speech of God?” And I:

“The proof revealing truth to me relies
on acts that happened; for such miracles,
nature can heat no iron, beat no anvil.”

“Say, who assures you that those works were real?”
came the reply. “The very thing that needs
proof—no thing else—attests these works to you.”

I said: “If without miracles the world
was turned to Christianity, that is
so great a miracle that all the rest

are not its hundredth part: for you were poor
and hungry when you found the field and sowed
111  the good plant—once a vine and now a thorn.

This done, the high and holy court resounded
throughout its spheres with “Te Deum laudamus,”
sung with the melody they use on high."

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Four Zoas, Night VIII, Page 107, (E 381)

"Then Jesus Came & Died willing beneath Tirzah & Rahab".