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Creator:
Print made by William Blake, 1757–1827
Title:
"So cried he, rending off his robe & throwing down his scepter..." (Plate 14)
Part Of:

Collective Title: America. A Prophecy, Copy M

Date:
1793
Materials & Techniques:
Color-printed relief etching, with watercolor and pen and black ink on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 14 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches (36.8 x 26.7 cm), Plate: 9 3/8 x 6 7/8 inches (23.8 x 17.5 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Inscribed in blue ink upper right: "12"

Lettered upper center: "So cried he, rending off his robe & throwing down his scepter. In sight of Albions Guardian, and all the thirteen Angels Rent off their robes to the hungry wind, & threw their golden scep-ters Down on the land of America. indignant they descended Headlong from out their heav'nly heights, descending swift as fires | Over the land; naked & flaming are their lineaments seen In the deep gloom, by Washington & Paine & Warren they stood And the flame folded roaring fierce within the pitchy night Before the Demon red, who burnt towards America, In black smoke thunders and loud winds rejoicing in its terror | Breaking in smoky wreaths from the wild deep, & gath'ring thick In flames as of a furnace on the land from North to South"

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1992.8.2(14)
Classification:
Prints
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
cane | cave | crypt | door | men | religious and mythological subject | staff (walking stick) | stones | text | trees
Access:
Accessible in the Study Room [Request]
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:3856
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At the height of the political and social upheaval of the French Revolution, William Blake printed his first full-scale prophetic book, America. A Prophecy. Rather than recounting the horrors that reverberated from France throughout Europe, his illustrated poem reflects on the revolutionary spirit in the American colonies, which had ended in American independence a decade earlier. Blake and many other radicals in the 1790s viewed the American Revolution as the beginning of a global process of liberating nations from superstition and despotism. Although America. A Prophecy is rooted in recent events, the text and accompanying plates do not offer a historical chronology but rather transform history into a mythical narrative of universal relevance.

Gallery label for the Critique of Reason: Romantic Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2015-03-06 - 2015-07-26)

William Blake: Visionary (The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2023-10-17 - 2024-01-14) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

William Blake - The Artist (Tate Britain, 2019-09-11 - 2020-02-20) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Critique of Reason : Romantic Art, 1760–1860 (Yale University Art Gallery, 2015-03-06 - 2015-07-26) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Human Form Divine - William Blake from the Paul Mellon Collection (Yale Center for British Art, 1997-04-02 - 1997-07-06) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

William Blake, Libros profe´ticos, vol. 1, Atalanta, Vilau¨r, Spain, 2013, p. 221, PR4142 .S35 2013 [ORBIS]

William Blake : Visionary, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, p. 127, pl. 85, NJ18.B57 A12 2020 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]


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