Colour print, ink, tempera and watercolour on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/william-blake-39" aria-label="More by William Blake" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">William Blake</a>
Night Enitharmons Joy formerly called Hecate
Presented by W. Graham Robertson 1939
actions: postures and motions
adults
animals: birds
animals: fish and aquatic life
animals: mammals
bat
Blake, William, ‘Europe a prophecy’, 1794
book - non-specific
characters
donkey
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
Enitharmon
familiar
female
kneeling
landscape
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
magic and occultism
male
man
night
nudes
objects
owl
people
reading, writing, printed matter
religion and belief
rocky
shame
sin
sitting
times of the day
toad
universal religious imagery
witch
woman
<p>The dense, dark colour-printing in the sky and the rocks suggests that this was the first of the three known impressions to be printed. Blake has used pen and ink to give strong outlines to the figures, and to draw locks of hair, the bat, and the donkey’s mane and rough coat. The figures have been given form and roundness by washes of intense but transparent colour. The owl’s eyes are highlighted with a bright, opaque red wash.</p><p>Enitharmon is a character in Blake’s mythology. In her ‘night of joy’ she sets out her false religion.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
paper unique colour print ink tempera watercolour
15 October 2001 – 7 July 2002
2002-07-07
15 October 2001 – 7 July 2002
2002-07-07
2001-10-15
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-10-15
William Blake and His Followers
Collection based display
24 November 2003 – 22 November 2004
2004-11-22
10 November 2003
2003-11-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-11-24
William Blake the Painter at Work
Collection based display
15 February 2006 – 1 May 2006
2006-05-01
15 February 2006 – 1 May 2006
2006-05-01
2006-02-15
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2006-02-15
Gothic Nightmares: Fuseli, Blake and the Romantic Imagination
Exhibition
16 March 2009 – 14 June 2009
2009-06-14
1 April 2009 – 28 June 2009
2009-06-28
2009-04-01
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (Paris, France)
Musée de la vie Romantique (Paris, France)
2009-03-16
William Blake
Loan-out
16 February 2011 – 21 August 2011
2011-08-21
16 February 2011 – 21 August 2011
2011-08-21
2011-02-16
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2011-02-16
Watercolour
Exhibition
1 November 2011 – 21 October 2012
2012-10-21
1 November 2011 – 19 February 2012
2012-02-19
2011-11-01
State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow, Russia)
3 July 2012 – 21 October 2012
2012-10-21
2012-07-03
Fundació “la Caixa” (Madrid, Spain)
2011-11-01
Blake Exhibition
Loan-out
27 July 2013 – 11 January 2015
2015-01-11
27 July 2013 – 3 November 2013
2013-11-03
2013-07-27
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Edinburgh, UK)
http://www.nationalgalleries.org/
2013-07-27
Witches and Wicked Bodies
Loan-out
1 September 2016 – 30 April 2017
2017-04-30
1 September 2016 – 30 April 2017
2017-04-30
2016-09-01
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2016-09-01
Tracey Emin & William Blake in Focus
Collection based display
11 September 2019 – 2 February 2020
2020-02-02
11 September 2019 – 2 February 2020
2020-02-02
2019-09-11
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2019-09-11
William Blake: The Artist
Exhibition
29 October 2024 – 30 September 2025
2025-09-30
30 October 2024 – 2 February 2025
2025-02-02
2024-10-30
Reggia di Venaria Reale (Turin, Italy)
1 September 2025 – 31 January 2026
2026-01-31
2025-09-01
Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest, Hungary)
1 March 2026 – 31 August 2026
2026-08-31
2026-03-01
External
2024-10-29
William Blake and the Age of Romantic Fantasy: British Art & Imagination
Loan-out
The Night of Enitharmon’s Joy (formerly called ‘Hecate’)
support: 439 × 581 mm
frame: 640 × 786 × 48 mm
Presented by W. Graham Robertson 1939
<div class="para1">
<span class="text14">The dense, dark colour-printing in the sky and the      rocks suggests that this was the </span><span class="text13">first of the      three known impressions to </span><span class="text3">
</span><span class="text14">be printed.  Blake has used <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/pen-and-ink" title="Glossary definition for 'Pen and Ink'"><span>pen and ink</span></a> to</span><span class="text3"> give strong outlines to the figures, and to </span><span class="text14">draw locks of hair, the bat, and the donkey’s</span><span class="text3"> </span><span class="text13">mane and rough coat. The figures      have </span><span class="text14">been given <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/f/form" title="Glossary definition for 'Form'"><span>form</span></a> and roundness by washes of      intense but transparent colour. The owl’s eyes are highlighted with a      bright, opaque </span><span class="text3">red wash. </span>
</div>
<div class="para10">
<span class="text3">
<br/> </span>
</div>
<div class="para1">
<span class="text13">Enitharmon is a character in Blake’s mythology.      In her ‘night of joy’ she sets  out her false religion.</span><span class="text3">
<br/> </span>
</div>

Display caption
2004-09-09T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-the-night-of-enitharmons-joy-formerly-called-hecate-n05056" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05056</span></a> <b>Hecate</b> (?) <i>c.</i>1795
<br/></p>
<p>N 05056 / B 316
<br/>Colour print finished in ink and watercolour 439×581 (17 9/16×22 5/8) on paper approx. 545×770 (21 5/8×30 1/4)
<br/>Signed ‘Blake’ incised b.l. Watermarked ‘1794/J WHATMAN’
<br/>Presented by W. Graham Robertson 1939
<br/>PROVENANCE Thomas Butts; Thomas Butts jun.; Capt. F.J. Butts; his widow, sold through Carfax April 1906 to W. Graham Robertson
<br/>EXHIBITED BFAC 1876 (204); Carfax 1904 (22); Carfax 1906 (31); Cambridge 1910; Tate Gallery (67) and Manchester (51) 1913–14; on loan to Tate Gallery 1920–7; BFAC 1927 (56, pl.42); <i>British Art</i> RA 1934 (776, repr. in 1st ed. pl.87; 703); Whitechapel 1938 (49); <i>Wartime Acquisitions</i> National Gallery 1942 (9); Paris, Antwerp (pl.26), Zurich (repr.) and Tate Gallery 1947 (37); Tate Gallery 1978 (99, repr.); New Haven and Toronto 1982–3 (55, repr.)
<br/>LITERATURE Rossetti 1863, p.238 no.228, and 1880, p.253 no.257; Robertson in Gilchrist 1907, p.410, repr.; Cook and Wedderburn <i>Works of Ruskin</i>, XXXVI, 1909, pp.32–3; Percival 1938, p.70, repr.; Collins Baker in <i>Huntington Library Quarterly</i>, IV, 1940–1, p.360 (reprinted in Essick 1973, pp.118–19, pl.68); Preston 1952, pp.47–9 no.8, pl.8; Roe 1953, p.67; Blunt 1959, pp.59–60, pl.26a; Merchant in <i>Apollo</i>, LXXIX, 1964, p.322, pl.8 (reprinted in Essick 1973, pp.243–4, pl.68); Damon 1965, p.370; Hagstrum in Hilles and Bloom 1965, pp.320, 329 nn.30 and 34, pl.6; Raine 1968, 11, pp.7–8, pl.125; Kostelanetz in Rosenfeld 1969, pp.126–7; Mellor 1974, pp.157–8, pl.42; Bindman 1977, pp.98, 100; Klonsky 1977, p.60, repr. in colour; Bindman <i>Graphic Works</i> 1978, no.334, repr.; Paley 1978, pp.38, 178, pl.26; La Belle in <i>Blake</i>, XIV, 1980–1, pp.77–80, pl.15; Butlin 1981, p.171 no.316, colour pl.396; Heppner in <i>Bulletin of Research in the Humanities</i>, LXXXIV, 1981, pp.337–8, 355–65, repr. p.362; Butlin in <i>Blake</i>, XV, 1981–2, p.102; Bindman in <i>Blake</i>, XVI, 1982–3, p.225; Hilton 1983, p.162, detail repr. pl.40; Warner 1984, p.120. <i>Also repr: Mizue</i>, no.882, 1978, 9, p.11 in colour
<br/></p>
<p>Two other copies of this <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>print</span></a> are known, in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, and in the Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino (Butlin 1981, nos.317 and 318, pls.415 and 416). None of these is dated, though the Tate Gallery copy is watermarked 1794, and in this case, as in that of ‘Pity’, it seems possible to accept, partly for stylistic reasons, that all three copies were executed <i>c.</i>1795, the Tate copy being the first pull, that in Edinburgh the second, and that at San Marino the last. A <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/g/graphite" title="Glossary definition for 'Graphite'"><span>pencil</span></a> sketch in reverse was formerly in the collection of Ian L. Phillips (Butlin no.319, pl.419).
<br/>
<br/>This work seems to have been designed as a companion to ‘Pity’. In the case of the copies in the Tate Gallery the form of signature and the general colouring are similar. The two designs probably represent aspects of the feminine role in the Fallen World.
<br/>
<br/>Until recently the traditional title, ‘Hecate’, has been generally accepted; the only difference of opinion seems to have been over whether the title referred to Puck's closing speech in <i>A Midsummer Night's Dream</i> or to the figure in <i>Macbeth</i>. However; as Christopher Heppner had pointed out, the title ‘Hecate’ was not used until William Rossetti's lists in Gilchrists's <i>Life of William Blake</i>, 1863. No title is inscribed on the mount unlike others of the colour prints that belonged to Thomas Butts, nor does it figure in any surviving account between Blake and Butts. In fact the first title to be applied to his design, in a reference by John Ruskin in a letter of <i>c.</i>1843 to the copy in the Huntington Library, was ‘The Owls’. In all traditional representations of Hecate the three heads of what is a single figure face outwards; here the seated female figure partly obscures totally distinct younger figures, a girl on the left and a boy on the right. One's instinctive reaction, as Heppner points out, is that this is a depiction of shame, and in this the design would be on a par to that representing pity. To some extent this identification is supported visually by comparison with the frontispiece to <i>Visions of the Daughters of Albion</i> (no.21) which definitely represents shame, with figures seated in somewhat similar poses at the mouth of a cave. However, it is difficult to be precise about this identification. Jean Hagstrum saw the scene as representing jealousy while his pupil Warren Jones, in an unpublished dissertation reported by Heppner, sees it as representing institutional religion. Heppner himself is reluctant to go beyond identifying the main figure as that of a witch though not specifically Hecate; the strange creature hovering in the air above would be her familiar, while the owl and toad shown on the left are also to be associated with witchcraft.
<br/>
<br/>Heppner suggests further that, just as Blake illustrated pity in the companion print as a sort of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/n/narrative" title="Glossary definition for 'Narrative'"><span>narrative</span></a>, so this <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> should also be seen as a point in time, with the ass on the left standing for a means of travel. The fact that it is derived from an <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/engraving" title="Glossary definition for 'Engraving'"><span>engraving</span></a> of ‘The Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ in Alexander Browne's <i>Ars Pictoria</i>, 1675 (repr. Collins Baker 1940–1, p.361; 1973, pl.43), and reappears in Blake's <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a> of the same subject of 1806 in the Metropolitan Museum (Butlin no.472, colour pl.543), seems to have no <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/i/iconography" title="Glossary definition for 'Iconography'"><span>iconographic</span></a> significance; it also appears in the illustration showing the Good Samaritan in Young's <i>Night Thoughts</i> (Night 11, p.35; Butlin no.330 <i>68</i>, repr. Erdman <i>Night Thoughts</i> 1980).
<br/>
<br/>Shame is quite often associated with pride in Blake's writings as in ‘Shame is Prides cloke’ (<i>The Marriage of Heaven and Hell</i>, 1790–93, plate 7; Keynes <i>Writings</i> 1957, p.151) and ‘The Sexes sprung from Shame &amp; Pride’ (‘To Tirzah’ added <i>c.</i>1805 or later to <i>Songs of Experience</i>; Keynes 1957, p.220). It is also yet another devisive element: ‘Shame divides Families. Shame hath divided Albion in sunder!’ (<i>Jerusalem, c.</i>1804–15; Keynes 1957, p.643).
<br/>
<br/>Blake's composition may have influenced Fuseli's ‘The Witch and the Mandrake’, both the oil exhibited at the Royal <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/academy" title="Glossary definition for 'Academy'"><span>Academy</span></a> in 1812 and the engraving of probably about the same date (repr. Gert Schiff, <i>Johann Heinrich Füssli</i>, 1973, 11, p.489 no.1497 and p.499 no.1510), though, as Fuseli had already exhibited a lost work called ‘The Mandrake; a Charm’ in 1785, the influence may have been the other way round.</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin, <i>William Blake 1757-1827</i>, Tate Gallery Collections, V, London 1990
<br/>
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-06T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults animals: birds animals: fish and aquatic life animals: mammals bat Blake, William, ‘Europe a prophecy’, 1794 book - non-specific characters donkey emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas Enitharmon familiar female kneeling landscape literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) magic and occultism male man night nudes objects owl people reading, writing, printed matter religion and belief rocky shame sin sitting times of the day toad universal religious imagery witch woman