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Dimensions: 17.5 by 24 cm., 7 by 9 1/2 in.

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Provenance: The artst's wife Mrs Blake;
Frederick Tatham;
Alexander Macmillan, 1876;
Quaritch 1882, by whom sold 30 June 1886 to W. Graham Robertson;
Anonymous sale, Christie's, London, 22 July 1949, lot 73 as 'Unknown subject' with three other drawings (bt. 18 gns by Maggs);
George Goyder, by whom sold 1966 to Agnew's;
from whom bought by Lady Melchett;
Anonymous sale, Christie's, London, 9 November 1971, lot 79 as 'The Deluge'

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Literature: K. Preston, ed., The Blake Collection of W. Graham Robertson, described by the Collector, 1952, pp.180, no.102 as 'Imploring Group';
Martin Butlin, The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 1981, p.30, no. 79, pl. 77

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Notes: PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN
Here figures emerge from the ground below while an angel blowing a trumpet descends from above. The lower part of the drawing is comparable, but not directly related, to the lower part of the frontispiece to G. A. Burger's Leonora, engraved by Perry after Blake and published in 1796 (see David Bindman, The Complete Graphic Works of William Blake, 1978, no.380). The present work, however, appears to date from some ten or fifteen years earlier. This drawing originates from a large group which remained in Blake's studio at his death. They passed to his widow and thence to Frederick Tatham, with whom she was living as a housekeeper at the time of her death in 1831. They all bear similar inscriptions stating that Blake's authorship is 'vouched by' Tatham, and most were dispersed at the sale of Tatham's collection in these Rooms on 29υth April 1862.