- Date
- ca. 1826-1827
- Accession number
- 000.41
- Dimensions
- image including text: 15 x 11 in. (38.1 x 27.9 cm.)
headpiece: 4 7/16 x 8 1/16 in. (11.2 x 20.5 cm.)
sheet: 14 15/16 x 10 15/16 in. (38 x 27.8 cm.)
- Medium
- pencil on wove paper
- Description
- Text of Genesis 4:1-14.
The design, within framing lines above the text, pictures events following the death of Abel and illustrates the first line of Blake's chapter heading. In about 1826, Blake painted a tempera of the same subject, showing Cain fleeing from his brother's grave, with Eve lamenting over Abel's body and Adam kneeling behind her, his gestures indicating shock at the horror of the first murder. [1] The sketch on leaf 10 would seem to be a variant of this design. A few lines in the lower part of the design may indicate an open grave or the first sketchy indications of Abel's body. Behind the horizontal lines on the left is a prone figure whose head is supported by a kneeling figure. It is unclear whether this is Adam comforting the distraught Eve, as Damon notes (1924, 221, and 1965, 152), or one of Abel's parents lamenting over his body. A few curved lines below the head of the kneeling figure may be an alternative position for his head or an indication of another figure behind the first. On the far right, the small (and distant?) figure of Cain flees to the right. Above him hovers a much larger figure, apparently in pursuit. This may be God, as in many traditional portrayals of the scene, or a personification of "The Voice of Abels Blood," a phrase based on Genesis 4:10 Blake wrote on a generally similar hovering figure in the tailpiece to The Ghost of Abel (1822). [2]
Notes
1. Tate Gallery; Butlin 1981, No. 806. The tempera is based closely on a watercolor of ca. 1805-1809 (Fogg Art Museum; Butlin 1981, No. 664). There is also a pencil sketch (British Museum; Butlin 1981, No. 665), probably for the watercolor, and a miniatrure version, perhaps a replica by John Linnell (Keynes collection, Fitzwilliam Museum; Butlin 1981, No. 666). These designs are similar to the "Scene" Blake sets forth at the beginning of his brief drama of 1822, The Ghost of Abel: "A rocky Country. Eve fainted over the dead body of Abel which lays near a Grave. Adam keneels by her Jehovah stands above" (Blake 1982, 270.)
2. Blake 1982, 272. Tannenbaum 1978, 23-34, discusses the pictorial conventions associated with the subject and the relationships between leaves 10-11 of the Genesis manuscript and The Ghost of Abel. Damon 1924, 221, and 1965, 152, states that the hovering figure is Abel's "ghost."
- Credit
- The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
- Department
- European Art
