Graphite on paper. verso: graphite 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>
Tiriel Supporting Dying Myratana Tiriel Supporting Dying Myratana
Presented by Mrs John Richmond 1922
actions: postures and motions
adults
arms folded
Blake, William, ‘Tiriel’
blindness / cataract / myopia
characters
diseases and conditions
king
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
man, old
mental illness
people
royalty and social rank
standing
Tiriel
walking
woman
work and occupations
<p>This is a sketch for the first illustration to Blake’s poem Tiriel. It illustrates the lines ‘the aged man rais’d up his right hand to the heavens, His left supported Myratana shrinking in pangs of death’. Tiriel is the blind, mad and tyrannical King of the West. He cursed his sons when they rebelled against him. Then, after the death of his wife Myratana, ‘darkling o’er the mountains’ he ‘sought his pathless way’.</p><p>This brief sketch shows how Blake began his compositions.</p><p><em>Gallery label, May 2003</em></p>
paper unique graphite
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
20 April 2015 – 7 May 2017
2017-05-07
20 April 2015 – 7 May 2017
2017-05-07
2015-04-20
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2015-04-20
William Blake
Collection based display
Sketch for ‘Tiriel Supporting the Dying Myratana’. Verso: Sketch for ‘Tiriel Supporting the Dying Myratana’
support: 291 × 450 mm
Presented by Mrs John Richmond 1922
<div>
    This is a sketch for the first illustration  to      Blake’s poem Tiriel. It illustrates the lines ‘the aged man rais’d up his right hand  to the heavens, His left supported Myratana shrinking in pangs of death’.      Tiriel is the  blind, mad and tyrannical King of the West. He cursed his      sons when they rebelled against him. Then, after the death of his  wife Myratana, ‘darkling o’er the      mountains’ he ‘sought his pathless way’.   </div>
<div>
     This brief sketch shows how Blake began  his      compositions.
<br/> </div>

Display caption
2003-05-07T00:00:00
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-sketch-for-tiriel-supporting-the-dying-myratana-verso-sketch-for-tiriel-supporting-a00040" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>A00040</span></a> <b>Sketches for ‘Tiriel Supporting the Dying Myratana’</b>
<i>c.</i> 1789 (recto and verso)
<br/>
<br/>A 00040 / B 200
<br/>Pencil 291 × 450 (11 1/2 × 17 3/4)
<br/>Inscribed on recto by Frederick Tatham ‘These few fine Lines by William Blake vouched by Fred<sup>k</sup> Tatham’ b.r.
<br/>Presented by Mrs John Richmond 1922
<br/>PROVENANCE
<br/>Mrs Blake; Frederick Tatham; his brother-in-law George Richmond, sold Christie's 29 April 1897 (in 147, with 22 other works; see no.2) £2.10.0 bt Dr Richard Sisley; his daughter Mrs John Richmond
<br/>LITERATURE
<br/>Michael Tolley, review of 1971 edition of this catalogue, <i>Blake Newsletter</i>, VI, 1972–3, p.29; Butlin 1981, no.200, pls.227 and 228
<br/></p>
<p>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/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawings</span></a> on both 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/r/recto-verso" title="Glossary definition for 'Recto / Verso'"><span>recto</span></a> and the verso are almost certainly connected with ‘Tiriel Supporting the Dying Myratana and Cursing his Sons’, one of the twelve pen and wash drawings illustrating Blake's poem <i>Tiriel</i>
(Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection; Butlin 1981, no.198 <i>1</i>, pl.223). The aged Tiriel, with his dying wife Myratana, upbraids and curses their three sons who have driven him into exile (Keynes <i>Writings</i>
1957, p.89; Bentley <i>Tiriel</i> 1967, pp.60–61). The architectural background of the finished drawing is absent, and the gestures of the figures are somewhat different, but the confrontation of the two groups is very close in feeling. The drawing on the recto also has elements of ‘Tiriel Upheld on the Shoulders of Ijim’ (Victoria and Albert Museum; Butlin no.198 <i>7</i>; repr. Bentley 1967, pl.5).
<br/>
<br/>The twelve finished pen and wash drawings illustrate, more or less closely, the manuscript known as <i>Tiriel</i>
from the name of its chief protagonist (British Museum, Dept of MS. EG2876; repr. in full Bentley 1967, pp.61–89). They measure approximately 7 1/4 × 10 3/4 in, slightly larger than and in the opposite direction to the pages of the manuscript which are 8 1/4 × 6 3/16 in. They were probably designed, had the work been published, to have been <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 the conventional way. This <i>supports a date before Blake's fusion of text and illustration in one technical process</i> in the illuminated books which began in <i>There is no Natural Religion</i> and <i>All Religions are One</i> of <i>c.</i>1788, and, in its fully developed <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>, in <i>Songs of Innocence</i> of 1789. Most authorities, including Anthony Blunt (1959, p.11) and Bentley, have dated both manuscript and drawings to <i>c.</i>1789; David Bindman (1977, pp.44–7, and exh. cat. 1982–3, pp.46, 78) suggests that they may have been begun at a rather earlier date, <i>c.</i>1786.
<br/>
<br/>This work was formerly inventoried as no.3694 xi.</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
2004-09-22T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults arms folded Blake, William, ‘Tiriel’ blindness / cataract / myopia characters diseases and conditions king literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) man, old mental illness people royalty and social rank standing Tiriel walking woman work and occupations