+ Expand

Artist or Maker: William Blake (1757-1827)

+ Expand

Description: 'Christ the Mediator'; Christ pleading before the Father for St. Mary Magdalene
pen and grey ink and tempera on canvas
10 3/4 x 15 1/4 in. (26.4 x 38.7 cm.)

+ Expand

Provenance: Painted for Thomas Butts 1799 or 1800.
Thomas Butts Jun., Foster's, 29 June 1853, lot 82, as 'The Holy Father, Christ &c' (9/- to J.C. Strange).
R.A. Potts, Sotheby's, London, 17-18 June 1912, 2nd day, lot 240 ( £71 to E. Parsons).
E. Parsons, July 1912 to
W. Graham Robertson; Christie's, London, 22 July 1949, lot 40 (504gns. to Agnew's on behalf of George Goyder).

+ Expand

Exhibited: London, Tate Gallery, Works by William Blake, October-December 1913, no. 39.
London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, Blake Centenary Exhibition, 1927, no. 37.
London, Tate Gallery, William Blake, 1757-1827, 1947, no. 50.
Bournemouth Art Club and Brighton Art Gallery, Original Works by William Blake (1757-1827) from the Graham Robertson Collection, April-June 1949, no. 38.
London, Arts Council Gallery, The Tempera Paintings of William Blake, June-July 1951, no. 26, illustrated pl. 10.

+ Expand

Published: W.M. Rossetti, 'Annotated Catalogue of Blake's Pictures and Drawings' in A. Gilchrist, Life of William Blake, London, 1863, vol. II, p. 231, no. 200, and 2nd edition, London, 1880, p. 245, no. 225.
L. Binyon, The Drawings and Engravings of William Blake, London, 1922, illustrated pl. 21.
K. Preston, The Blake Collection of W. Graham Robertson, London, 1952, p. 156, no. 59, illustrated pl. 52.
G. Keynes, William Blake's Illustrations to the Bible, London, 1957, pp. xiii, 50, no. 171, illustrated, and in colour pl. viii.
A. Blunt, The Art of William Blake, New York and London, 1959, pp. 66-7, illustrated pl. 34b.
A.K. Mellor, Blake's Human Form Divine, Berkeley, New York and London, 1974, p. 249.
D. Bindman, Blake as an Artist, Oxford, 1974, pp. 124-5, 128.
M. Butlin, The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, New Haven and London, 1981, vol. I, p. 334, no. 429, illustrated vol. II, pl. 497.
P. Ackroyd, Blake, London, 1995, p. 207.
G.E. Bentley, Jun., The Stranger from Paradise: A Biography of William Blake, New Haven and London, 2001, p. 192.

+ Expand

Notes: Property from the Collection of the late George Goyder, C.B.E.

William Blake, visionary poet and painter, was also a great technical innovator. In order to be in full control of the publication of his writings he invented his own form of printing both text and illustrations simultaneously in relief-etching. Blake at first added colour by hand in watercolour but, from 1794 onwards, he developed a form of colour-printing in a much thicker medium that he then went on to use in his paintings in his own particular form of tempera, or 'fresco' as he called it. As Blake wrote in the advertisement for the exhibition of his own works, mainly temperas, held at his brother's house in 1809-10, 'Fresco Painting is properly Miniature, or Enamel Painting; every thing in Fresco is as high finished as Miniature or Enamel, although in Works larger than Life. The Art has been lost: I have recovered it.' The exhibition itself was described by Blake as being of works 'Painted... in Water Colours, Being the Ancient Method of Fresco Painting Restored'. Later in the catalogue, writing of four watercolours, Blake writes that 'the Artist wishes [they] were in Fresco, on an enlarged scale to ornament the altars of churches, and to make England like Italy, respected by respectable men of other countries on account of Art'. Writing of two of the actual temperas in the exhibition, the Spiritual Form of Nelson and of Pitt now in Tate Britain, Blake says that he wishes it was the fashion to do such works on a large scale and that he could be commissioned 'to execute these two Pictures on a scale that is suitable to the grandeur of the nation, who is the parent of his heroes, in high finished fresco, where the colours would be as pure and as permanent as precious stones though the figures were one hundred feet in height' (D.V. Erdman, The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1982, pp. 526-550). Such were Blake's ambitions for his new medium!

Blake's first paintings in tempera were done as part of a commission for illustrations to the Bible from the government clerk Thomas Butts. On 26 August 1799 Blake wrote to his friend George Cumberland, 'As to Myself about whom you are so kindly interested I live by a Miracle. I am Painting small Pictures from the Bible... My Work pleases my employer, and I have an order for Fifty small Pictures at One Guinea each' (Erdman, op.cit, p. 704). There are dated examples from 1799 and 1800, and one example was exhibited at the Royal Academy in each of these years. Further references in Blake's letters suggest that he and Butts were thinking of further examples in 1802, but none can be securely identified. Following the works in tempera Blake continued painting Biblical subjects in watercolour, from 1800 until 1805 with a few later examples. (For Blake's temperas of 1799 and 1800 see Butlin, op.cit., pp. 317-335, and, for the Biblical watercolours, pp. 355-372.)

Blake's temperas of 1799 and 1800 were done in two sizes. Most, including this example, measure approximately 10 1/8 x 15 in. (27 x 38 cm.) or the vertical equivalent, while a few are larger, approximately 12 3/4 x 19 1/2 in. (33 x 49.5 cm.). Most are painted on canvas but certain examples are painted on metal (see Butlin, loc.cit., nos. 379, 392, 401, 416, 422 and 425; these are often in particularly bad condition) and some are on paper mounted on canvas; these tend to be in better condition than those painted directly on canvas or metal. Despite this general rule however this example on canvas is in a particularly good state of preservation.

As well as Blake's own comments on his use of tempera, quoted above, there are a number of accounts by his contemporaries; these can be supplemented by modern scientific analysis. Blake's follower and unofficial executor Frederick Tatham wrote, in his manuscript 'Life of Blake' of circa 1832, that 'Oil painting was recommended to him, as the only medium through which breadth, force, & sufficient rapidity could be obtained;...his [Blake's] great objections were, that the picture after it was painted, sunk so much that it ceased to retain the brilliancy & luxury that he intended, & also that no definite line, no positive end to the form could even with the greatest of his Ingenuity be obtained, all his lines dwindled & his clearness melted, from these circumstances it harassed him, he grew impatient & rebellious, & flung it aside with ill success & tormented with doubts... The Author has seen pictures of Blakes in the possession of W m. Butts Esq r e., Fitzroy Square, that have appeared exactly like the old cabinet pictures of the 14 & 15 Century where he has touched the lights with white compounded of whiting & glue, of which material he laid the ground of his Panel. Two of these pictures are of the most sublime compositions and artistlike workmanship: they are not drawings on Canvas as some of his others, but they are superlative specimens of genuine painter-like handling & force, & are little inferior in depth, tone & colour to any modern Oil picture in the country' (G.E. Bentley, Blake Records, 2nd ed., New Haven and London, 2004, pp. 669-70).

More technical is the account by the artist and art historian J.T. Smith: 'Blake's modes of preparing his ground, and laying them [sic] over his panels for painting, mixing his colours, and manner of working, were those which he considered to have been practised by the earliest fresco-painters, whose productions still remain, in numerous instances, vivid and permanently fresh. His ground was a mixture of whiting and carpenter's glue, which he passed over several times in thin coatings: his colours he ground himself, and also united them with the same sort of glue, but in a much weaker state. He would, in the course of painting a picture, pass a very thin transparent wash of glue-water over the whole of the parts he had worked upon, and then proceed with his finishing' (Bentley, 2004, p. 622). Note Blake's process of working his pictures up in layers. Both Tatham's and Smith's use of the word 'panel' for Blake's supports seems to cover a wider range of materials including canvas and metal.

Modern research has confirmed that Blake prepared his canvases with an animal glue size in the form of a white priming layer which reflected the light back through the transparent layers, just as paper did in his watercolours. The precise contents of the medium were sometimes varied. Blake then drew the outlines of his composition in dilute ink or dilute paint, again in the manner of his watercolours, and, as Samuel Palmer confirmed, was 'always careful not to depart from his "first inventive lines"' (R. Lister, ed. The Letters of Samuel Palmer, 2 vols., Oxford 1974, vol. 1, p. 476). Indeed, after the colours had been applied Blake would reinforce his outlines with a final clarification in black ink, as in his watercolours and the large colour prints of 1795 and 1804-5. (The most definitive and up-to-date acount of Blake's tempera techniques is to be found in J.H. Townsend, ed., William Blake: The Painter at Work, London, 2003, pp. 110-159, the 1799-1800 works being covered on pp. 112-121.)

The first part of the title given for this work derives from W.M. Rossetti's listing in 1863. It can be expanded as 'Christ pleading before the Father for St. Mary Magdalene'. There is no precise Biblical text but the subject may derive from the First Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy, 'For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus' (I Timothy, ii. 5), with a subsiduary source in the First Epistle of St. John the Apostle, 'My little children, these things write I to you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous' (I John ii, 1). In this picture the specific individual, St. Mary Magdalene, stands for mankind as a whole. The position of Christ's arms is that of the Crucified mediating between the curvilinear, supplicating figure of the Magdalene and the rectilinear, seated figure of God the Father with his staff. Curving flames seem to emanate from the Father, who is accompanied by a crouching, subservient angel while the Magdalene is supported by angels in more flowing, flexible attitudes. Blakes's sympathies seem to lie firmly with mankind, however sinful.

This work has sometimes been equated with the untraced 'Christ and the Seven Virgins', sold at Foster's on 29 June 1853 (in lot 83 with two other works) where it was also bought by J.C. Strange but apparently returned to Thomas Butts, Jun. and offered again at Foster's on 8 March 1854 (in lot 13 with three others) when it was unsold. However, W.M. Rossetti, loc.cit., listed 'Christ the Mediator' as belonging to 'Mr. Strange, from Mr. Butts', which seems to fit the present picture better.

Blake had been brought up in London, the son of a modest hosier in Broad Street, Golden Square. Little is known of his early life but from a young age he showed a talent for drawing and at the age of ten was sent to study under Henry Pars at Old Shipley's School in the Strand (1767-71) where he began to write poetry and came under the influence of engravings after Michaelangelo and Raphael. In 1772, at fourteen, he was apprenticed for seven years to the engraver James Basire and one of his tasks was to draw and engrave the monuments in Westminster Abbey, which gave him a love of gothic architecture, another great influence in his life. In 1778, he entered the Royal Academy Schools, first exhibiting there in 1780 with a work entitled the The Death of Earl Godwin. In 1789, he engraved and published his first major independent work Songs of Innocence using a unique method of relief etching that he had developed to combine text and illustration, and in 1794 he reprinted these together with the Songs of Experience. During the 1790's he published a number of 'Prophetic Books' by this process and continued to do so throughout his life. Blake also continued to exhibit regularly at the Royal Academy, most of his exhibits focusing on religious subjects. His last exhibited work at the Academy was of Christ in the sepulchre guarded by Angels (1808, no. 55).

Religion held enormous importance for Blake and dominated every aspect of his life; at his birth he had seen an angel and continued to experience visions throughout his life (fig. 1). For Blake, the Bible was the history of mankind, providing the key to understanding everything; in his opinion, it formed the basis of true art as distinct from the false art of Classicism and showed mankind the way to Redemption. In the words of his recent biographer Peter Ackroyd, 'his closest and most significant attachment was to the Bible. It would have been the staple reading of his family, the object of continual meditation and interpretation... It has been said that there is nothing in Blake's work which is not first to be found in the Bible... His poetry and painting are imbued with biblical motifs and images; the very curve and cadence of his sentences are derived from the Old Testament, while his passages of ritualistic description and denunciation come from the words of the great prophets that were heard in the house in Broad Street' (P. Ackroyd, Blake, London, 1995, p. 13).

By profession, Blake remained a struggling printer but also attracted a diferent type of patron who was sympathetic to his other interests and enabled him to carry out his own more ambitious work such as the temperas or 'frescos'. His key patron, who stood by him for a period of over twenty years, was Thomas Butts, mentioned earlier, who commissioned the present work. Thomas Butts of Fitzroy Square was a clerk in the office of the Commisary General of Musters and bought regularly from him, his commissions included some of Blake's greatest ventures such as Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Comus, the Ode of the Nativity, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso and the great series of twenty designs for the Book of Job. His patronage slowed down after 1816 but continued until Blake's death, the Job engravings were purchased in 1825 and Dante in 1827.

After Butts's death, the present work was sold by his son, Thomas Butts Junior, and passed through two other collections before it came to the attention of Graham Robertson in 1912. Robertson was a man of many interests, a painter and collector, who also illustrated books, wrote plays and designed and produced theatrical productions. Towards the end of his life however, he was probably best known for his remarkable collection of works by William Blake. Robertson was a teenager when he first came across Gilchrist's Life of Blake in a Southampton bookshop. The book inspired him to purchase a pencil drawing by the artist entitled A Vision which shows the poet taking dictation from an angel. The first finished painting he bought was The Ghost of a Flea, which cost him the princely sum of twelve pounds. Robertson began to put together a serious collection of Blake's work, his most exciting opportunity arising in 1904-7, when he was able to buy a large part of the collection originally formed by Butts; some at auction but mainly direct from his grandson, Captain Butts. After 1907, Robertson added to the collection less frequently, his last purchase being the colour-print of Christ appearing to the Apostles, acquired at Christie's in 1938.

In 1939, Robertson gave the nine great colour-prints to the Tate and they formed the core of their Blake collection. Four more Blakes were endowed in his will including some of his favourite images: the colour print of Christ appearing to the Apostles and the temperas of The Ghost of a Flea, The Body of Abel found by Adam and Eve and The River of Life. Many hoped more of Robertson's collection would be left to the nation but he was keen to allow other collectors the opportunity to acquire Blake's work and some ninety lots were offered at Christie's on 22 July 1949 (fig. 2). In the words of Sir Geoffrey Keynes, who wrote the forward to the catalogue, it was 'the greatest Blake sale that has ever taken place or ever will'.

The Blake Trust, founded a few years earlier by Keynes and George Goyder, worked with the National Art Collection Fund to make sure that a number of key British institutions were able to secure examples of the artist's work. At the end of the sale the auctioneer Sir Alec Martin read the following notice which is recorded in the auctioneer's book:

'I stated here that the Executors had asked me to announce that the lots acquired by the following museums Brighton Museum, the British Museum, [The] Fitzwilliam Museum, [The] N[ational] G[allery] of Scotland, Southampton, and the Tate Gallery were presented by the Executors free of charge to those museums through the National Art Collection Fund.'

Through this arrangement the museums listed above were able to acquire works by Blake from the Robertson Collection; The Fitzwilliam secured: The Angel of the Divine Presence clothing Adam and Eve with skins, The Judgement of Solomon, The Soldiers casting lots for Christ's Garments, The Angel appearing to the three Mary's at the Sepulchre. The Ascension and The Spiritual Condition of Man; while The Compassion of Pharaoh's Daughter, The Sacrifice of Jehthah's Daughter, Jacob's Ladder and The Judgement of Paris were secured by The British Museum, Ruth parting from Naomi went to Southampton, while the National Gallery of Scotland secured Job confessing his Presumption or The Lord Answering Job out of the Whirlwind and the Tate obtained Lucifer or Satan in his former Glory, Christ blessing the little Children (fig. 3), The Agony in the Garden, Christ taking leave of his Mother, The Death of the Virgin, The Entombment, The Four and twenty elders casting down their crowns and The Penance of Jane Shore in St Paul's Church. Finally, Brighton added The Adoration of the Kings to it's collection. Prices at the sale were competitive with the top price (over 7,000 gns.) being paid for the watercolour entitled Job Confessing his Presumption, while the highest price for a tempera was nearly 1,000 gns for Butts is tempera on canvas of Abraham and Isaac (fig. 4, 10 x 15 in., 1799) a watercolour version of which is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

While the Blake Trust, which he had co-founded with Keynes, helped museums at the Richardson sale, Agnew's acted for Goyder and secured Christ the Mediator for his personal collection (fig. 5). George Amin Goyder was a successful businessman; Chairman and Chief Executive of the leading newsprint company in the United Kingdom, British International Paper, he was appointed C.B.E. in 1976 for his work as Co-founder and President of the Centre for International Briefing. Goyder had wide ranging interests: his passion for the Arts was as strong as his business acumen and he was also interested in the reform of Church, government and company law. His interest in the Church led to his joining the General Synod of the Church of England (1948-75) and he also wrote a number of publications including The People's Church (1966). Music, collecting old books and theology were among his hobbies and his library of first editions documented the Reformation, the development and concept of Natural Law and the theory of Usury.

His collection of works on paper was also remarkable. By the time of his death, with the help of Agnew's, the leading London dealer, he had put together a fine collection of 18th and 19th Century drawings ranging from Cozens and Gainsborough to Turner and Ruskin. Many of the drawings have been on loan at various museums such as Gainsborough's House and the Fitzwilliam; Christ the Mediator was until recently on loan at the Tate Gallery.

Over the last two years, Christie's has handled a number of watercolours from the Goyder collection (20 November 2003, lots 43-57, and 3 June 2004 lots 67-74) including the magnificent drawing of Bellinzona, Switzerland, looking North towards the St. Gotthard Pass which established a world record for the artist.

Largely overlooked in his own time or simply dismissed as an eccentric, it was not until the 1930's that Blake began to receive serious scholarly attention. Now Blake enjoys an international reputation as an artist of astonishing creativity, power and vision. The recent exhibition dedicated to Blake at Tate Britain, which travelled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (9 November 2000 - 24 June 2001) set out to bring to life his achievements as 'one of our greatest and most intriguing artists, poets and writers'. His standing today is perhaps higher than ever.

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Please note this picture is currently presented in an English frame of a cavetto section with composition lambs tongue sight moulding dated circa 1790 with its original gilding. It has kindly been loaned by Arnold Wiggins & Sons and can be purchased for GBP3,200 + VAT. For further details or to see the existing frame please contact a member of the department.