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Description: THE PROPERTY OF A FAMILY

TIRIEL LED BY HELA

17.8 by 26.9 cm., 7 by 10 5/8 in.

grey wash over pencil with pen and black ink on laid paper

PROVENANCE

Bicknall Sale Christie's, London, 1 May 1863, lot 384;
bt. James Leathart;
by descent to Percival W. Leathart (by 1906);
by descent to his wife Mrs. Leathart;
Anonymous Sale Sotheby's, London, 19 May 1958, lot 14;
bt. Frances Edwards;
sold to Philip C. Duschnes, New York;
sold to Mrs. Kain (by 1959)

EXHIBITED

London, Carfax Gallery, Frescoes, Prints and Drawings by William Blake, 1906, no. 76;
London, British Museum, William Blake and his Circle, 1957, no. 12;
Chicago, Art Club of Chicago, A Second Talent, 1971, no. 24;
London, Tate Britain, William Blake, 2000, no. 26

LITERATURE

William Michael Rossetti, `Annotated Lists of Blake's Paintings, Drawings and Engravings', in Alexander Gilchrist, Life of William Blake, 1863, 2:202-61, revised and reprinted in Gilchrist, Life of Blake, 1880, 2:207-83;
G.E. Bentley Jr, William Blake `Tiriel'. Facsimile and transcript of the Manuscript, Reproduction of the Drawings and a Commentrary on the Poem, 1967, pp. 19-21 (illustrated);
Kathleen Raine, Blake and Tradition, 1968, vol. 1. pp. 42-55 (illustrated);
Robert N. Essick, "The Altering Eye: Blake's Vision in the Tiriel Designs," in William Blake: Essays in Honour of Sir Geoffrey Keynes, ed. Paley and Phillips, 1973, pp. 50-65;
David Bindman, Blake as an Artist, 1977, pp. 43-8;
Martin Butlin, The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 1981, vol. p.81, no. 198.10;
David V. Erdman, The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, 1982, p. 277

NOTE

Tiriel Led by Hela is one of twelve designs for Blake's first prophetic poem Tiriel the manuscript of which is now in the British Library. The important Tiriel watercolours are the only series of finished designs by Blake that illustrate one of his own poems.

In 1779 Blake completed his apprenticeship to the engraver James Basire and was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools at Somerset House. For the next ten years, during which time Blake worked on his Tiriel manuscript, he was to exhibit at the Royal Academy, as well as begin commercial engravings for the radical publisher Joseph Johnson (1739-1809). In 1782 Blake married Catherine Butcher who was to become his life-long companion and supporter. Sadly this was followed by the loss of Blake's father in 1784 and his brother from consumption in 1787. The end of the decade in 1789 saw the whole of Europe in turmoil as news arrived of the French Revolution.

Not surprisingly perhaps, the Tiriel poem deals with a confusing range of themes, from political tyranny to the proper means of child rearing. As Martin Myrone has explained, the complex narrative follows the misadventures of Tiriel, blind King of the West, and the son of the senile Har and Heva (see R. Hamlyn and M. Phillips, William Blake, 2000, p. 44). Tiriel revolted against his father, becoming a tyrant, enslaving his sons and nephews, and banishing one of his brothers. He was in turn overthrown by his sons and exiled himself to the wilderness. In the opening scene of the poem (the watercolour now in the Paul Mellon Collection, Yale), Tiriel then returns and summons his sons to attend to their mother Myratana, on her deathbed. After her death Tiriel again leaves, denounced as a tyrant by his sons and aware of his own impending death. Summoning storms and pestilence, Tiriel kills one hundred of his wone hundred and thirty sons and four of his five daughters.

His one surviving daughter, Hela then denounces him to Har, for which Tiriel turns her hair into snakes as this watercolour illustrates. She leads him into the mountains where his brother Zazel and his nephew come out of their caves and curse him. With Hela, Tiriel then returns to his parent's garden, where, railing against the poisonous hypocrisy of mankind and his parents' misguided upbringing of children, Tiriel dies.

As Martin Myrone also points out, 'scholars remain divided about the precise significance of this work. Some see the poem as a precursor of Blake's later symbolic writings in the cycle of revolutions, tyranny, hypocrisy and death that characterises Tiriel's life. More generally the poem has been interpreted as allegorising his fierce and enduring opposition to materialism and rationalism through the figure of Tiriel who is seen consistently retreating into the wilderness,' (see R. Hamlyn and M. Phillips, op cit., p.44).

Blake sought to engage with themes of darkness, terror and tragedy associated with 'Gothic' literature and art. For Blake, medieval sculpture and architecture, such as the tomb monuments which he had studied in Westminster Abbey, provided forms and themes that inspired his art. The lucidly designed spaces, the figures restrained gestures and the sharp linearity of the drawing in the Tiriel series draw undeniably upon Blake's interest in medieval tombs and his early pencil studies.

This is the first Tiriel drawing to come onto the open market in over thirty years. Furthermore, only two other of the nine traced drawings, from this series of twelve remain in private hands. The volume of Blake studies and exhibitions which have appeared in the last hundred years attest to the transformation of Blake from ostracised outsider in his own life-time to acclaimed genius today. In the emotive power of his combination of prose and illustration, ultimately, Tiriel marks the emergence of Blake's original vision. Blake followed this first original illustrated work with the Songs of Innocence and the Book of Thel. Tiriel, however was to remain in manuscript until published in full by WM Rossetti in 1874. We are grateful to Martin Myrone at Tate Britain and Professor Robert N. Essick for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.