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Jan 23, 2017

St. Matthew

1799

William Blake

(British, 1757–1827)

England

Tempera on canvas

Overall: 38.5 x 26.5 cm (15 3/16 x 10 7/16 in.)

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 2017.4

Location

203B British Painting and Decorative Arts

Did you know?

Like St. Matthew, William Blake reported having visions of angels throughout his life.

Description

The energy and awe with which the evangelist Saint Matthew responds to the angel presenting the divinely inspired text echoes William Blake’s attitude toward artistic inspiration. From childhood Blake experienced visions that are reflected in the otherworldliness of his work. While Blake was not embraced by the fine art establishment, a small group of patrons believed in his genius and commissioned works in which his unusual visions had free rein.

Provenance

1799-1845

Thomas Butts [1757 - 1845], London, by descent to his son, Thomas Butts, Jr.

1845-1862

Thomas Butts, Jr. [died 1862], London

by 1863-?

William Michael Rossetti [1829-1919], London

by 1876-1892

William Bell Scott [1811-1890], consigned to sale at Sotheby's, London

1892

(Sotheby's, London, July 14, 1892, no. 238, sold to Quaritch)

1892-1893

(Quaritch, sold to E.H. van Ingen for Mrs. William Emerson) ¹

1893-1958

Mrs. William Emerson, consigned to sale at Sotheby's, London ²

1958

(Sotheby's London, May 19, 1958, no.12, bought by Agnew for Lady Melchett)

1958-1971

Lady Melchett [1928-], sold at Christie's, London ³

1971-?

(Christie's London, November 9, 1971, no. 71, bought by Piccadilly Gallery)

(Piccadilly Gallery, London, sold to Galleria Galatea) ⁴

(Galleria Galatea, Turin, sold to private collector, Milan)

by 1981-?

private collector, Milan

2016-17

(Ben Elwes Fine Art, London, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)

2017-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Provenance Footnotes

¹Purchased by Quaritch at Sotheby's sale for £27

²E.H. van Ingen purchased the painting for Mrs. William Emerson from Quaritch, were it was listed in catalogue 62 of 1893 for £36

³Agnew purchased the painting for Lady Melchett from the Sotheby's sale for £1,300

⁴The painting was purchase by the Piccadilly Gallery, London from Christie's for 5,000 gns

Citations

Butlin, Martin. The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981. vol. 1, p. 323.

Gilchrist, Alexander, Anne Gilchrist, W. J. Linton, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, Charles Edwin West, and Charles Henry Jeens. Life of William Blake, "Pictor Ignotus": With Selections from His Poems and Other Writings. London, Cambridge, United Kingdom: Macmillan and Co., 1863. Reproduced: p. 204, no. 28, 1880; Reproduced: p. 210, no. 31

Philadelphia Museum of Art. William Blake, 1757-1827; A Descriptive Catalogue of an Exhibition of the Works of William Blake Selected from Collections in the United States. Philadelphia, PA: The Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1939. Reproduced: no. 155

Blunt, Anthony. The Art of William Blake. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1959. Reproduced: p. 66

Butlin, Martin. The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake. New Haven, CT: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, 1981. Mentioned: vol. I, p. 323; Reproduced: vol II, plate 488

Arendsee, M., and M. Steinman-Arendsee. "Take the CAN disability aesthetics tour, at the Cleveland Museum of art." CAN Journal (Winter 2019/20): 76-87. Reproduced & mentioned: p. 78

Luckow, Almuth, and William Blake. Die Gottesbilder des William Blake: Kunst und Philosophie. Darmstadt : WBG Academic, 2021. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 220-221, Abb. 52

Exhibition history

The Works of William Blake. Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, United Kingdom (1876).

International Exhibition of Industry, Science and Art: Pictures of Works of Art. The Meadows, Edinburgh, Scotland (May 6 – Oct 30, 1886).

Eighteenth Century English Paintings. Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA. (May 5 –May 19, 1930).

William Blake. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA (1939).

British Gallery Reinstallation (June 2020). The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=St. Matthew|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/2017.4|author=William Blake|year=1799|access-date=05 June 2023|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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St. Matthew

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