Ink, tempera and gold on mahogany
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>
Body Abel Found by Adam and Eve
Bequeathed by W. Graham Robertson 1949
Abel
actions: expressive
actions: postures and motions
Adam
adults
agriculture, gardening & fishing
architecture
arm / arms raised
astronomy
bending forward
Bible: Old Testament
birth to death
Blake, William, ‘The Ghost of Abel’
brother
Cain
crime and punishment
death
embracing
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
Eve
family
father
female
Genesis, chapter 4
grave
grief
guilt
head in hand / hands
landscape
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
lying down
male
man
mother
mountain
murder
nudes
objects
people
religion and belief
rocky
running
society
son
spade
storm
sun
townscapes / man-made features
weather
woman
<p>This work shows Adam and Eve discovering their dead son. His brother Cain, the murderer, flees the scene. Despite his evil deed, Cain, appears as an ideal male figure. Here, Blake’s approach is in line with that of Lavater, who argued that someone’s appearance is often ‘better than his actions’. However Lavater also suggested that in performing an evil act the person could become disfigured, perhaps explaining Cain’s contorted body.</p><p>Rather than follow Lavater here, Blake’s use of the body to invoke self-loathing, fear and, in the case of Eve, despair may be closer to pathognomy - a way of reading emotions about which Lavater remained sceptical.</p><p><em>Gallery label, March 2011</em></p>
painting ink tempera gold mahogany
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
1 April 2006 – 16 April 2007
2007-04-16
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2006-04-01
Blake in the 1940s
Collection based display
20 April 2009 – 4 October 2009
2009-10-04
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-04-20
William Blake: The 1809 Exhibition
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
21 September 2012 – 23 June 2013
2013-06-23
21 September 2012 – 20 January 2013
2013-01-20
2012-09-21
Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie (Frankfurt, Germany)
http://www.staedelmuseum.de
2012-09-21
Dark Romanticism: From Goya to Max Ernst
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
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 Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve
support: 325 × 433 mm
frame: 367 × 473 × 44 mm
Bequeathed by W. Graham Robertson 1949
<p>This work shows Adam and Eve discovering their dead son.  His brother Cain, the murderer, flees the scene. Despite his evil deed, Cain, appears as an ideal male figure. Here, Blake’s approach is in line with that of Lavater, who argued that someone’s appearance is often ‘better than his actions’. However Lavater also suggested that in performing an evil act the person could become disfigured, perhaps explaining Cain’s contorted body. 
<br/>
<br/>Rather than follow Lavater here, Blake’s use of the body to invoke self-loathing, fear and, in the case of Eve, despair may be closer to pathognomy - a way of reading emotions about which Lavater remained sceptical. 
<br/></p>

Display caption
2011-03-18T00:00:00
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-body-of-abel-found-by-adam-and-eve-n05888" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05888</span></a> <b>The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve</b> <i>c</i>.1826
<br/></p>
<p>N 05888 / B 806
<br/>Pen and tempera, in places over gold, on mahogany 325×433 (12 13/16×17 1/16)
<br/>Signed ‘fresco W. BLAKE... [damaged- ?‘fecit’ missing]’ incised b.r. Bequeathed by W. Graham Robertson 1949
<br/>PROVENANCE. ?Thomas Butts; ?Thomas Butts jun.; ?his daughter Mrs Graham Foster Piggot; ?Capt. F.J. Butts by 1863;...; ? Rev. Thomas Buchanan, Archdeacon of Wiltshire; ?B.F.C. Costeloc by 1890; Mr Fitzmaurice of the Close, Salisbury; Carfax, sold January 1906 to W. Graham Robertson
<br/>EXHIBITED ?<i>Whitechapel Fine Art Exhibition</i> St Jude's School-House, March–April 1890 (81, as ‘The Death of Abel’); Carfax 1906 (17); Bournemouth, Southampton and Brighton 1949 (4); Tate Gallery 1978 (312, repr.)
<br/>LITERATURE ?Rossetti 1863, p.221 no.102, and 1880, p.221 no.102; Robertson in Gilchrist 1907, p.492 no.9, repr. facing p.248; Preston 1952, pp.72–3 no.19, pl.19; Wicksteed <i>Jerusalem</i> 1953, p.65; Keynes <i>Bible</i> 1957, p.2 no.15a, repr.; H.M. Margoliouth, ‘William Blake, Historical Painter’, <i>Studio</i>, CLIII, 1957, pp.98–100, repr.; Blunt 1959, pp.40–1, pl.57c; Taylor and Grant in <i>Blake Studies</i>, 1, 1968–9, pp.68–71, 200, repr. p.69; Keynes <i>Blake Studies</i>, 1971, pp.145–6, 217; Todd 1971, pp.124–5, repr.; Lindberg <i>Job</i>
1973, p.228; Schiff <i>Fiissli</i> 1973, 1, pp.289, 605; Geoffrey Keynes <i>William Blake's Laocoön, a last Testament, with Related Works</i>, 1976, pp.40–5, 61–2, pl.11; Bindman 1977, p.252 n.14; Klonsky 1977, p.108, repr. in colour; Leslie Tannenbaum, ‘Blake and the Iconography of Cain’, Essick and Pearce 1978, pp.23–4, pl.42; Butlin 1981, pp.550–1 no.806, colour pl.971; Warner 1984, p.68
<br/></p>
<p>This work and ‘Satan Smiting Job with Sore Boils’ (<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-satan-smiting-job-with-sore-boils-n03340" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03340</span></a>) are similar in size, technique, support and form of signature to the version of ‘Count Ugolino in Prison’ formerly in the collection of Sir Geoffrey Keynes and now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Butlin 1981 no.805, colour pl.970); this last work is painted in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/t/tempera" title="Glossary definition for 'Tempera'"><span>tempera</span></a> on <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/panel" title="Glossary definition for 'Panel'"><span>panel</span></a>, 327×430 (12 7/8×16 15/16) and is signed ‘W. BLAKE fec.’ incised b.r. In comparison with Blake's earlier temperas (see <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-moses-indignant-at-the-golden-calf-t04134" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T04134</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-bathsheba-at-the-bath-n03007" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03007</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-christ-blessing-the-little-children-n05893" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05893</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-agony-in-the-garden-n05894" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05894</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-body-of-christ-borne-to-the-tomb-n01164" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01164</span></a>) the technique consists of a much thinner paint film, akin to <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>, on a gesso ground laid on panel. These late temperas have survived in a much better condition than the earlier examples and they also seem to show an advance on ‘Winter’ (<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-winter-t02387" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T02387</span></a>). Both examples, in the Tate Gallery were cleaned 1977–8.
<br/></p>
<p>The ‘Ugolino’ panel seems to be the work mentioned in Blake's letter to John Linnell of 25 April 1827: ‘as to Ugolino &amp; c I never supposed that I should sell them[;] my wife alone is answerable for their having Existed in any finished state-I am too much attachd to Dante to think much of anything else’ (Keynes <i>Writings</i> 1957, p.879; Keynes <i>Letters</i>
1968, p.164). The reference to Dante is to the series of illustrations begun in 1824 but left incomplete at Blake's death in August 1827 (see <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-dante-and-virgil-penetrating-the-forest-n03351" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03351</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-primaeval-giants-sunk-in-the-soil-n03363" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03363</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-punishment-of-the-thieves-n03364" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03364</span></a>- <span>N03349</span>; <span>N03364</span>, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-composition-sketch-possibly-a-subject-from-dante-verso-a-man-standing-over-a-figure-a00047" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>A00047</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-circle-of-the-lustful-francesca-da-rimini-the-whirlwind-of-lovers-a00005" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>A00005</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-dante-striking-against-bocca-degli-abati-a00011" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>A00011</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-circle-of-the-lustful-francesca-da-rimini-the-whirlwind-of-lovers-t01950" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T01950</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-dante-striking-against-bocca-degli-abati-t01956" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T01956</span></a>) and of the several other versions of 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> of ‘Ugolino’ that closest to the panel is 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/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 this series (British Museum; Butlin no.812 <i>68</i>, repr. Roe 1963, pl.64). There are further reasons for dating ‘Satan Smiting Job with Sore Boils’ to 1825 or later, so the probable date for all three panels is <i>c</i>.1826.</p>
<p>
<br/>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/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> in tempera of ‘The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve’ is a later version of the watercolour shown in Blake's exhibition of 1809 as ‘The Body of Abel found by Adam and Eve; Cain, who was about to bury it, fleeing from the face of his Parents’; this was one of four watercolours in the exhibition that ‘the Artist wishes were in <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/fresco" title="Glossary definition for 'Fresco'"><span>Fresco</span></a>, 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’ (Blake <i>Descriptive Catalogue</i> 1809, pp.60–1, Keynes <i>Writings</i>
1957, p.584); for what seems to be this watercolour, a work from the Linnell collection now in the Fogg Museum, see Butlin 1981 no.664, repr. in colour pl.596. There is a drawing related to this watercolour in the British Museum (Butlin no.665 <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/recto-verso" title="Glossary definition for 'Recto / Verso'"><span>recto</span></a>, repr. pl.882). A small replica of the watercolour in Indian <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/ink" title="Glossary definition for 'Ink'"><span>ink</span></a>, with squaring lines apparently made in preparation for 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>, was formerly in the collection of Sir Geoffrey Keynes; this may be the drawing sold by Mrs Blake through Haviland Burke to Dr John Jebb, Bishop of Limerick, in 1830 or alternatively a copy done by John Linnell on 12 September 1821 and finished two days later (for these two works see Butlin no.666, the Keynes drawing repr. pl.884). Blake treated the subject again as one of the illustrations to his manuscript copy of Genesis now in the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino (Butlin no.828 <i>10</i>, pl.1091).
<br/>
<br/>The history of this panel is uncertain. Rossetti lists a painting of this subject as in the collection of Captain Butts but relates it to the 1809 exhibition, the work shown at which seems to have been the watercolour that later belonged to John Linnell. Preston quotes a note of W. Graham Robertson that the panel passed to Captain Butt's sister together with sixteen further works which perished in an attic, apart from this solitary exception which seems to have been previously acquired by her brother. In addition Graham Robertson wrote on a label on the back of the picture that it came from a Mr Fitzmaurice of the Close, Salisbury, but told Ruthven Todd, in a letter of 18 May 1942, that Robert Ross of Carfax said it came from a house in the Close but would not say whose. Ruthven Todd has suggested that the picture at one time belonged to Archdeacon Thomas Buchanan, canon of Salisbury and husband of Laura, a daughter of George Richmond, Blake's friend and owner of the companion picture <span>N03340</span>. The Salisbury association may therefore reflect a Richmond <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/provenance" title="Glossary definition for 'Provenance'"><span>provenance</span></a> rather than a Butts one. To add to the complications a work entitled ‘The Death of Abel’ was lent by B.F.C. Costelloe to an exhibition at Whitechapel in 1890. This could also be the tempera or the missing Jebb drawing, if it is missing, referred to above.
<br/>
<br/>The incident shown in this picture is not in the Bible but appears in Blake's <i>The Ghost of Abel</i> of 1822. In this short dramatic piece the Ghost of Abel, seconded by Satan, cries for vengeance while Jehovah, supported by angels, upholds the ‘Covenant of the Forgiveness of Sin’ (Keynes <i>Writings</i> 1957, pp.779–81). William Vaughan has pointed out that the inclusion of Adam and Eve in the scene must derive from Solomon Gessner's <i>Death of Abel</i>, first published in an English translation in 1761 and again with illustrations by Henry Richter in 1795 and Stothard in 1797. Twelve depictions of this subject were exhibited in London between 1790 and 1830, some with actual references to Gessner, and five indeed between 1819 and 1826, the date of Blake's tempera (see William Vaughan, <i>German <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/romanticism" title="Glossary definition for 'Romanticism'"><span>Romanticism</span></a> and English Art</i>, 1979, pp.107–9, 259).</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
2004-10-08T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
Abel actions: expressive actions: postures and motions Adam adults agriculture, gardening & fishing architecture arm / arms raised astronomy bending forward Bible: Old Testament birth to death Blake, William, ‘The Ghost of Abel’ brother Cain crime and punishment death embracing emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas Eve family father female Genesis, chapter 4 grave grief guilt head in hand / hands landscape literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) lying down male man mother mountain murder nudes objects people religion and belief rocky running society son spade storm sun townscapes / man-made features weather woman