Relief etching, ink and watercolour on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Art Fund
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>
Frontispiece to Visions Daughters Albion
Purchased with the assistance of a special grant from the National Gallery and donations from the Art Fund, Lord Duveen and others, and presented through the Art Fund 1919
actions: postures and motions
adults
astronomy
Blake, William, ‘Visions of the Daughters of Albion’
Bromion
Bromion’s cave
cave
chain
characters
cloud
crime and punishment
crouching
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
fear
female
grief
humility
imprisonment
kneeling
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
male
man
morality
mythical, religious, fictional
nudes
objects
Oothoon
people
places
punishment
rape
sea
seascapes and coasts
shame
social comment
society
sun
Theotormon
tools and machinery
weather
woman
<p>Blake''s invention of a method of printing in relief from etched plates, first used in 1788, gave him control over the style, production and publishing of his own books. By 1794 he had begun applying coloured pigments to his printing plates and then, as a further development, printing some of the designs in his books as separate coloured images. Visions of the Daughters of Albion was an illuminated book with eight designs which Blake first advertised in 1793. This frontispiece is not part of any copy of the book but was separately printed in colours.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2004</em></p>
paper unique relief etching ink 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
6 December 2004 – 15 August 2005
2005-08-15
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-12-06
Blake and Jerusalem
Collection based display
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
18 October 2008 – 5 April 2009
2009-04-05
18 October 2008 – 19 April 2009
2009-04-19
2008-10-18
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2008-10-18
Blake and Collins
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)
3 July 2012 – 21 October 2012
2012-10-21
2012-07-03
Fundació “la Caixa” (Madrid, Spain)
2011-11-01
Blake Exhibition
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
Frontispiece to ‘Visions of the Daughters of Albion’
support: 170 × 120 mm
frame: 403 × 312 × 20 mm
Purchased with the assistance of a special grant from the National Gallery and donations from the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a>, Lord Duveen and others, and presented through the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> 1919
<p>Blake''s invention of a method of printing 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/r/relief" title="Glossary definition for 'Relief'"><span>relief</span></a> from <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/etching" title="Glossary definition for 'Etching'"><span>etched</span></a> plates, first used in 1788, gave him control over the style, production and publishing of his own books. By 1794 he had begun applying coloured pigments to his printing plates and then, as a further development, printing some of the designs in his books as separate coloured images.  Visions of the Daughters of Albion was  an illuminated book with eight designs  which Blake first advertised in 1793. This frontispiece is not part of any copy of the book but was separately printed in colours.</p>
Display caption
2004-08-18T00:00:00
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-frontispiece-to-visions-of-the-daughters-of-albion-n03373" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03373</span></a> <b>Frontispiece to <i>Visions of the Daughters of Albion</i></b>
1793/<i>c.</i>1795
<br/></p>
<p>N 03373 / B 264
<br/>Colour-printed relief etching finished in ink and watercolour 170×120 (6 3/4×4 3/4) on paper 355×267 (14×10 1/2)
<br/>Purchased with the assistance of a special grant from the National Gallery and donations from the National Art-Collections Fund, Lord Duveen and others, and presented through the National Art-Collections Fund 1919
<br/>PROVENANCE John Linnell, sold Christie's 15 March 1918 (174) £52.10.0 bt Martin for presentation to the Tate Gallery
<br/>EXHIBITED Tate Gallery (93), Manchester (80), Nottingham (60) and Edinburgh (47) 1913–14; Paris and Vienna (4); <i>English Romantic Art</i> Arts Council tour 1947 (8)
<br/>LITERATURE Rossetti 1863, p.202 no.12, and 1880, p.208 no.14, as ‘Design for the Frontispiece to the “Daughters of Albion”’; Damon 1924, pp.330, 332; Wright 1929, 11, p.51, repr. 1, pl. 14; Erdman in <i>Warburg Journal</i>, XV, 1952, p.246; Keynes and Wolf 1953, pp.26–8, 89; Digby 1957, p.75, pl.67; Blunt 1959, p.53; Hagstrum 1964, p.96; Beer 1968, pp.40–2; Erdman 1969, pp.233–4; Duerksen in <i>Blake Newsletter</i>, VI, 1972–3, p.72; Mellor 1974, pp.62–3, 142; Jackson, Murray and Duerkson in <i>Blake Newsletter</i>, VIII, 1974–5, pp.91–6; Bentley <i>Blake Books</i> 1977, pp.469, 478; Bindman 1977, pp.73–4, pl.56; Beer in Phillips 1978, pp.211–15; Paley 1978, p.177; Morton D. Paley, ‘“Wonderful Originals”- Blake and Ancient Sculpture’, Essick and Pearce 1978, p.178; Butlin 1981, p.146 no.264, colour pl.337
<br/></p>
<p>The title-page of <i>Visions of the Daughters of Albion</i> is dated 1793. The earliest copies, of 1793–4, were printed 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/m/monochrome" title="Glossary definition for 'Monochrome'"><span>monochrome</span></a> and finished 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/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a>. The only known colour-printed copy probably dates from 1795; this is also the approximate date of the two separate designs in the Tate Gallery. <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-penance-of-jane-shore-in-st-pauls-church-n05898" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05898</span></a> corresponds to page 5 of the <i>Large Book of Designs</i> in the British Museum which probably dates from a year earlier (Butlin 1981, no.262 <i>5</i>, pl.362).
<br/>
<br/><i>Visions of the Daughters of Albion</i> is 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/a/allegory" title="Glossary definition for 'Allegory'"><span>allegory</span></a> of the sinfulness of subjecting love to the bonds of orthodox morality. This full-page design is usually taken as showing Oothoon, ‘the soft soul of America’, bound back to back to Bromion, who has raped her; Theotormon, her lover, persuaded by Bromion's moralistic arguments that Oothoon is now impure, crouches in despair on the right. The setting is Bromion's cave. Duerksen, while accepting the identification of Theotormon on the right, suggests less convincingly that the other figures are not so specific, being two prisoners in Bromion's cave representing terror and meekness, the two principles by which Bromion maintains his tyrannical power. As well as an attack on orthodox morality Erdman also sees <i>Visions of the Daughters of Albion</i> as a condemnation of slavery and the temporising of Abolitionists such as Wilberforce.</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
2004-10-05T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults astronomy Blake, William, ‘Visions of the Daughters of Albion’ Bromion Bromion’s cave cave chain characters cloud crime and punishment crouching emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas fear female grief humility imprisonment kneeling literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) male man morality mythical, religious, fictional nudes objects Oothoon people places punishment rape sea seascapes and coasts shame social comment society sun Theotormon tools and machinery weather woman