Ink, graphite 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>
Blasphemer
Bequeathed by Miss Alice G.E. Carthew 1940
actions: postures and motions
adults
arm / arms raised
Bible: Old Testament
blasphemy
crime and punishment
execution
Judaeo-Christian imagery
kneeling
Leviticus, chapter 24
male
man
man, old
natural phenomena
nudes
people
religion and belief
smoke
society
stone
<p>This powerful watercolour illustrates lines from Leviticus in the Old Testament. It shows the son of an Israelite woman being stoned for blasphemy. God had told Moses that anyone who ‘blasphemeth the name of the Lord... shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him.’</p><p>This picture was one of a group of 135 drawings and paintings of biblical subjects by Blake, commissioned by his most loyal patron, Thomas Butts.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
paper unique ink graphite watercolour
8 July 2002 – 1 October 2003
2003-10-01
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-07-08
William Blake Body and Soul
Collection based display
8 July 2002 – 16 March 2003
2003-03-16
8 July 2002 – 16 March 2003
2003-03-16
2002-07-08
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-07-08
Body and Soul
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
15 March 2010 – 27 June 2010
2010-06-27
15 March 2010 – 27 June 2010
2010-06-27
2010-03-15
Musée d’Orsay (Paris, France)
2010-03-15
Crime et Châtiment. De Goya à Picasso
Loan-out
6 August 2010 – 24 August 2011
2011-08-24
6 August 2010 – 24 August 2011
2011-08-24
2010-08-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-08-06
Blake and the Gothic Imagination
Collection based display
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)
2011-11-01
Blake Exhibition
Loan-out
13 May 2013 – 6 April 2015
2015-04-06
13 May 2013 – 6 April 2015
2015-04-06
2013-05-13
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2013-05-13
William Blake
Collection based display
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 Blasphemer
support: 384 × 340 mm
frame: 661 × 583 × 27 mm
Bequeathed by Miss Alice G.E. Carthew 1940
<div>
    This powerful <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> illustrates  lines from      Leviticus in the Old Testament. It shows the son of an Israelite woman being stoned for blasphemy. God had told Moses that anyone who ‘blasphemeth  the name of the Lord... shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation      shall certainly stone him.’ 
<br/> </div>
<div>
<br/> </div>
<div>
    This picture was one of a group of 135 <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>drawings</span></a> and <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/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>paintings</span></a> of biblical subjects by Blake,      commissioned by  his most loyal patron, Thomas Butts.   </div>

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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-blasphemer-n05195" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05195</span></a> <b>The Blasphemer</b> <i>c.</i>1800
<br/></p>
<p>N 05195 / B 446
<br/>Pen and watercolour 381×340 (15×13 5/8)
<br/>Signed ‘WB inv’ in monogram b.l.
<br/>Bequeathed by Miss Alice G.E. Carthew 1940
<br/>PROVENANCE Thomas Butts; Thomas Butts jun., sold Sotheby's 26 March 1852 (149 as ‘The Blasphemer’) £1.19.0 bt Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, Bt.; his son, sold Christie's 10 April 1911 (125) £48.6.0 bt Miss Carthew
<br/>EXHIBITED On loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum 1860; BFAC 1876(76); Carfax 1906 (53); Tate Gallery (8), Manchester (7), Nottingham (5) and Edinburgh (8) 1913–14; Paris and Vienna 1937 (7); <i>British Painting</i> Hamburg, Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen 1949–50 (5); Port Sunlight 1950 (3); Tate Gallery 1978 (164, repr.)
<br/>LITERATURE Rossetti 1863, p.224 no.119, and 1880, p.236 no.142; Collins Baker in <i>Huntington Library Quarterly</i>, IV, 1940–1, p.365; Digby 1957, p.51, pl.51; Keynes <i>Bible</i> 1957, p.15 no.48 repr.; Blunt 1959, pp.72–3, 80, pl.36a; Taylor in <i>Blake Studies</i>, 1, 1968–9, pp.63–7, repr. p.65; Tomory <i>Fuseli</i> 1972, p.211; Wilton in <i>British Museum Yearbook</i>, 1, 1976, p.198, pl.234; Bindman 1977, pp.143–4; Klonsky 1977, p.73, repr.; Paley 1978, p.67; Paley in Essick and Pearce 1978, pp.171–2; Butlin 1981, pp.341–2 no.446, pl.520. <i>Also repr: Mizue</i> no.882, 1978, 9, p.25 in colour
<br/></p>
<p>This is an illustration to Leviticus, xxiv, 23. The old matt, now replaced, bore an inscription in the copperplate hand (see headnote to this section) giving the title ‘The Blasphemer’ and the text from Leviticus which refers to the story that begins in verses 10 to 16 of the condemnation by Moses to death of the Israelite woman's son for blaspheming the name of the Lord. However, William Rossetti retitled 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/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a> ‘The Stoning of Achan’ (Joshua, vii, 1, 18–25) on the grounds that, though ‘the subject <i>might</i> be the “Stoning of the Blasphemer” ..., or even of Stephen ... the figure seems less adapted for the latter: and a peculiar detail - a lurid wreath of smoke above his head, mingled with fire - would indicate the “burning with fire” of all that belonged to Achan’; no burning takes place in the passage from Leviticus. On the other hand Taylor, <i>loc. cit.</i>, and John E. Grant and Michael Tolley in verbal communications have supported the original identification given by the early inscription, which was also retained for the 1852 sale and the 1876 and 1913–14 exhibitions. The flames may have been added by Blake to strengthen the symbolism of what is surely a condemnation of the Mosaic law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; that law was in fact dictated by the Lord to Moses as a result of the Blasphemer's offence (Leviticus, xxiv, 13–22).
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<br/>Collins Baker has suggested that the Michelangelesque central figure may be derived from Flaxman, while Andrew Wilton traces it back, in more general terms, to the Antique ‘Fallen Warrior’ type as <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>engraved</span></a> in Stuart's <i>Antiquities of Athens</i>, 1762 (repr. <i>loc. cit.</i>
pl.233). This figure reappears in an otherwise different context in 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> <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> from the Keynes collection now in the Fitzwilliam Museum (Butlin 1981, no.564, pl.801) and in a red <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/chalk" title="Glossary definition for 'Chalk'"><span>chalk</span></a> drawing in the Fogg Museum (Butlin no.565, pl.802). Blake used this figure again, making the pose still more agonised, on page 25 of <i>Jerusalem</i>, engraved between 1804 and 1818, where the figure appears to be suffering disembowelment; the accompanying text is, significantly, an attack on Vengeance. Tomory compares the head of the Blasphemer to that of Sloth in Fuseli's engraved illustration to Lavater of <i>c.</i>1779 (repr. <i>op. cit.</i> pl.166).
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<br/>The loan in 1860 to the Victoria and Albert Museum, at that time known as the South Kensington Museum, was reported in the <i>Critic</i> for 14 April 1860: ‘There are also three drawings by that wonderful man William Blake. One is (we suppose) “The High Priests Stoning a Prophet”; the uplifted arms of the former have all that imaginative suggestiveness and rich appeal to the imagination characteristic of this painter’.</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin, <i>William Blake 1757-1827</i>, Tate Gallery Collections, V, London 1990
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Catalogue entry
2004-10-07T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults arm / arms raised Bible: Old Testament blasphemy crime and punishment execution Judaeo-Christian imagery kneeling Leviticus, chapter 24 male man man, old natural phenomena nudes people religion and belief smoke society stone