William Blake

‘And Unyok’d Heifers, Loitering Homewards, Low’

1821, reprinted 1977

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: William Blake 1757–1827
Part of: Illustrations to Robert John Thornton, ‘The Pastorals of Virgil’
Medium: Wood engraving on paper
Dimensions: Image: 33 × 77 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by British Museum Publications Ltd 1977
Reference: T02131

Catalogue entry

T02131 [from] Illustrations to Thorton's Pastorals of Virgil: Restrikes 1821/1977 [T02115-T02131; complete]

T02115–31 /-.
Seventeen wood-engravings on Japanese Hosho paper, each sheet approx. 121×153 (4 3/4×6)
Presented by British Museum Publications Ltd through Iain Bain and David Chambers 1977
PROVENANCE Printed for the donors 1977
EXHIBITED Tate Gallery 1978 (287–303, repr.)
LITERATURE As for A00111-A00127

Blake's woodblocks for his illustrations to Ambrose Philip's ‘Imitation of Virgil's First Eclogue’ in Dr Thornton's Pastorals of Virgil...Adapted for Schools were acquired by the British Museum in 1939 (1939-14-1-2 to 18). In 1977 one hundred and fifty sets of the seventeen engravings, together with an additional fifty impressions of the larger frontispiece, were printed for the British Museum by Iain Bain and David Chambers. The efforts taken to produce the optimum results are described in their introduction to the publication that goes with the restrikes. Despite some damages and warping certain details and gradations of tone were revealed which had not been picked out either in the early printings or in those from the electrotypes.

T02131 Plate 20: ‘And Unyok'd Heifers, Loitering Homeward, Low’

Wood-engraving 33×77 (1 5/16×3)

Published in:
Martin Butlin, William Blake 1757-1827, Tate Gallery Collections, V, London 1990