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A group of nude figures in an ominous landscape

At left, a nude male facing the viewer clutches at his hair in horror as he runs away from a group of nude figures at right. A woman kneels, bowing her head over the body of a male who lies on his back on the ground. A man kneeling behind her wears an expression of shock and looks on as the other man escapes. Over the fleeing man’s head, flames shoot down at him from a cloud, while a red sun sets over mountains in the distance.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.401
People
William Blake, British (London, England 1757 - 1827 London, England)
Title
Cain Fleeing from the Wrath of God (The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve)
Other Titles
Alternate Title: The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
c. 1805-1809
Culture
British
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/297850

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Watercolor, black ink, and graphite on cream wove paper
Dimensions
30.3 x 32.6 cm (11 15/16 x 12 13/16 in.)
frame: 63.4 x 62 cm (24 15/16 x 24 7/16 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Acquired from the artist by John Linnell; his sale, Christie's, London, March 15, 1918, no. 157 (£105); purchased at that sale by frank T. Sabin; Gabriel Wells, New York; acquired from him by Grenville L. Winthrop, 1922 ($1,275); his bequest to the Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.401
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Sir Geoffrey Keynes, William Blake's Illustrations to the Bible, Trianon Press for the William Blake Trust (New York, NY, 1957), pg. 2, no. 15b
  • Anthony Blunt, The Art of William Blake, Columbia University Press (New York, 1959), pp. 40-41
  • G. E. Bentley, Blake Records, The Clarendon Press (Oxford, 1969), pg. 274
  • Sir Geoffrey Keynes, Blake Studies, The Clarendon Press (Oxford, England, 1971), pp. 145-46
  • Ruthven Todd, William Blake the Artist, Studio Vista (London, 1971), pp. 122-25
  • Gert Schiff, Johann Heinrich Füssli, 1741-1825, Verlag Berichthaus and Prestel (Zurich; Munich, 1973), pp. 289, 605
  • Sir Geoffrey Keynes, William Blake’s Laocoön : a last testament : with related works: On Homers’ poetry and On Virgil, The ghost of Abel, Trianon Press for the William Blake Trust (Boissia, Clairvaux, Jura, France; London, 1976), pp. 39-45, 60-61, pl. 9
  • David Bindman, Blake as an Artist, Phaidon Press / E. P. Dutton (Oxford, England /New York, NY, 1977), pg. 237, n. 17
  • Marjorie B. Cohn, Wash and Gouache: A Study of the Development of the Materials of Watercolor, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 32, 42, 45, 89, 90, cat. no. 4, pl. 1 (color)
  • Martin Butlin, William Blake, exh. cat., Tate Britain (London, England, 1978), no. 312
  • Martin Butlin, The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT and London, England, 1981), no. 664, pl. 596
  • Anne Maheux, "An Analysis of the Watercolour Technique and Materials of William Blake" (thesis (certificate in conservation), Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, July 16, 1982), Unpublished, pp. 1-50 passim
  • Anne Maheux, "An Analysis of the Watercolor Technique and Materials of William Blake", Blake: an Illustrated Quarterly (Spring 1984), 17, no. 4, pp. 124, 128
  • Raymond Lister, The Paintings of William Blake, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, England, 1986), no. 73
  • Martin Butlin, William Blake, 1757-1827, Tate Publishing (London, 1990), pg. 168
  • William Blake, Milton a poem, and the final illuminated works : The ghost of Abel, On Homers poetry [and] On Virgil Laocoön, ed. Robert N. Essick and Joseph Viscomi, William Blake Trust/The Tate Gallery (London, 1993), pg. 222
  • William Blake, Milton a poem, and the final illuminated works: The ghost of Abel, On Homers poetry [and] On Virgil Laocoon, ed. Robert N. Essick, The William Blake Trust / The Tate Gallery (London, England, 1993), repr. p. 248 (supplementary illustration #1 to The Ghost of Abel)
  • Edward Saywell, "Guide to Drawing Terms and Techniques", Harvard University Art Museums Bulletin, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1998), vol. VI, no. 2, pp. 30-39, pp. 37-8 under "Watercolor"
  • Chikashi Kitazaki and Mina Oya, ed., Between Reality and Dreams: Nineteenth Century British and French Art from the Winthrop Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, exh. cat., National Museum of Western Art (Ueno, 2002), cat. no. 38, repr. (color)
  • Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New York, 2003), cat. no. 145, repr. (color)
  • Stephan Wolohojian, Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 2003), no. 145, repr.
  • Martin Butlin, "Blake in London" [exhibition review], The Burlington Magazine (2009), CLI, pp. 487-488

Exhibition History

  • Exhibition of Paintings in Fresco, Poetical and Historical Inventions, Blake's hosiery shop, 01/01/1809 - 12/31/1809
  • Exhibition of Watercolors and Drawings by William Blake, 1757-1827, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 10/01/1947 - 11/30/1947
  • Wash and Gouache: A Study of the Development of the Materials of Watercolor, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 05/12/1977 - 06/22/1977
  • Portrait, Prospect and Poetry: British Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Bequest, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 09/11/1993 - 11/07/1993
  • Between Reality and Dreams: Nineteenth Century British and French Art from the Winthrop Collection of the Fogg Art Museum, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 09/14/2002 - 12/08/2002
  • A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Lyon, 03/15/2003 - 05/26/2003; National Gallery, London, 06/25/2003 - 09/14/2003; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10/23/2003 - 01/25/2004
  • Adam and Eve, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 09/01/2018 - 01/06/2019

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu