Graphite, ink 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>
House Death
Bequeathed by Miss Alice G.E. Carthew 1940
actions: expressive
actions: postures and motions
adults
beard
bending forward
birth to death
body
dagger / knife
death - hovering figure
despair
diseases and conditions
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
flying
group
groups
hospital
illness
interiors
leprosy
lying down
man
objects
pain
people
pointing
public and municipal
suffering
symbols and personifications
weapons
<p>Blake believed John Milton to be England’s greatest poet, worthy of emulation but by no means above criticism. This drawing illustrates lines from Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), which describe a ‘Lazar-house... , wherein were laid/Numbers of all diseas’d, all maladies/... Dire was the tossing, deep the groans, despaire/Tended the sick... / And over them triumphant Death his Dart/Shook’.</p><p>Blake claimed that his epic poem, Milton 1804, had been ‘recited’ to him by Milton’s spirit. In this poem Blake criticises the poet’s ideas, and Milton asks for his errors to be corrected.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
paper unique graphite ink watercolour
24 March 2003 – 17 November 2003
2003-11-17
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-03-24
Blake and Illustration
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
30 April 2007 – 21 October 2007
2007-10-21
23 April 2007
2007-04-23
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2007-04-30
1807 - Blake, Slavery, and the Radical Mind
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 House of Death
support: 321 × 452 mm
Bequeathed by Miss Alice G.E. Carthew 1940
<div>
    Blake believed John Milton to be England’s greatest poet, worthy of emulation but  by no means above criticism. 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/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> illustrates lines from      Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), which describe a      ‘Lazar-house... , wherein were laid/Numbers of all      diseas’d, all maladies/... Dire was the tossing, deep the groans, despaire/Tended the sick... / And over them triumphant Death      his Dart/Shook’.   </div>
<div>
    Blake claimed that his epic poem, Milton 1804,      had been ‘recited’ to him by Milton’s spirit. In this      poem Blake criticises the poet’s ideas,      and Milton asks for his errors to be corrected.  </div>

Display caption
2004-09-08T00:00:00
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-house-of-death-n05192" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05192</span></a> <b>The House of Death</b> <i>c.</i> 1790
<br/>
<br/>N 05192 / B 259
<br/>Pencil, pen and wash 318 × 451 (12 1/2 × 17 13/16)</p>
<p>Bequeathed by Miss Alice G.E. Carthew 1940
<br/>PROVENANCE ...; ? William Bell Scott, sold Sotheby's 20–25 April 1885, 2nd day (185, as ‘Subject from Milton, pen and ink sketch’) £1 bought Pincott; ...; Miss Carthew
<br/>LITERATURE Collins Baker in <i>Huntington Library Bulletin</i>, X, 1936, p.142; Gert Schiff, <i>Johann Heinrich Füsslis Milton-Galerie</i>, 1963, pp.78–9, pl.38; Hagstrum 1964, pp.67–8, pl.42a; Warner in Erdman and Grant 1970, pp.186–7, pl.93; Butlin 1981, p.131 no.259, pl.307
<br/></p>
<p>This is a more or less finished <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> illustrating Milton's <i>Paradise Lost</i>, XI, lines 477–93 and related to the large colour <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>, <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-house-of-death-n05060" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05060</span></a>. The drawing has been damaged and was repaired by Miss Carthew, particularly in the upper left-hand corner. In the print the recumbent pair on the left are omitted, Death and Despair completely changed, and the other figures less radically altered.
<br/>
<br/>Collins Baker suggested that the drawing was by Fuseli, who did a number of versions of the subject including a large picture for his Milton Gallery, completed in 1793. However, although there is some general similarity in mood and in the figure of Despair on the left, the <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> is completely different, with recumbent figures based on Blake's early studies of Gothic tombs in Westminster Abbey, and heads on the right that are entirely characteristic of Blake's style. Moreover, the relationship to the print, which is in reverse, seems to be too close for another artist to be involved.
<br/>
<br/>The drawing seems to show a later development of the style and technique of the pen and wash drawings of the 1780s, for example <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-good-farmer-probably-the-parable-of-the-wheat-and-the-tares-verso-rough-sketch-n05198" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05198</span></a> and <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-job-his-wife-and-his-friends-the-complaint-of-job-verso-jobs-wife-and-eight-other-n05200" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05200</span></a>. It is close to the <i>Tiriel</i> illustrations of <i>c.</i>1789 (Butlin 1981, no.198, the series repr. Bentley <i>Tiriel</i> 1967) but rather more personal, particularly the air-borne figure of Death which is already Blake's typical Urizen-like type of bearded old man. On the other hand it probably precedes the somewhat freer style of ‘Los and Orc’ (<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-los-and-orc-t00547" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T00547</span></a>). It can therefore be dated to the beginning of the 1790s.</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin, <i>William Blake 1757-1827</i>, Tate Gallery Collections, V, London 1990
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-07T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: expressive actions: postures and motions adults beard bending forward birth to death body dagger / knife death - hovering figure despair diseases and conditions emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas flying group groups hospital illness interiors leprosy lying down man objects pain people pointing public and municipal suffering symbols and personifications weapons