File:Europe- a Prophecy (BM 1936,1116.32 1).jpg

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Europe: a Prophecy   (Wikidata search (Cirrus search) Wikidata query (SPARQL)  Create new Wikidata item based on this file)
Title
Europe: a Prophecy
Description
English: Copy A, plate 1, frontispiece: "The Ancient of Days"; a bearded nude male (probably Urizen) crouching in a heavenly sphere, its light illuminating surrounding clouds; his left arm holding a pair of compasses and reaching down with them, measuring the surrounding darkness. 1794
Relief etching and white-line etching printed in blue-green ink.
Date 1794
date QS:P571,+1794-00-00T00:00:00Z/9
Medium paper
Dimensions
Height: 234 millimetres
Width: 168 millimetres
institution QS:P195,Q6373
Current location
Prints and Drawings
Accession number
1936,1116.32
Notes

"Europe: a Prophecy" follows on from Blake's "America", although chronologically it describes an earlier history. "Europe" examines the destructive effects of a repressive Christianity on society.

"Europe" is an illuminated book comprised of 17 relief etchings. This is an early, incomplete proof copy consisting of 11 plates printed on 8 leaves. Nine complete copies are in existence, and the plate order varies: some late copies include an extra plate.

In copy A, plates are printed in a greenish blue ink (the exact colour appears to vary slightly from plate to plate?). There is no hand-colouring, except for tiny highlights and lines in the same ink. There is textual decoration throughout, which is only described when particularly plentiful. The sheets are uncut and measure approximately 332 x 262 mm. In most cases, the original stitching holes can be seen at the margin. The paper is slightly grey in colour. Sheets are mounted.

The British Museum has copies A and D of "Europe a Prophecy" (1936,1116.32 - 39 and 1859,0625.72 - 81). There is also a separate impression of the plate known as "Plague" in the collection, see reg. no. 1936,1002.1.

For reproductions of copies B, E and K of "Europe" (owned by the University of Glasgow, the Library of Congress and the Fitzwilliam Museum), together with descriptions of those copies, textual transcriptions and a bibliography, see Eaves, Morris; Essick, Robert; Viscomi, Joseph (eds.), The William Blake Archive (www.blakearchive.org).

This plate is in its first state as described in Keynes and Wolf, William Blake's Illuminated Books: A Census (New York, 1953), p. 77: Europe i.
Source/Photographer https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1936-1116-32
Permission
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© The Trustees of the British Museum, released as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
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current03:03, 12 May 2020Thumbnail for version as of 03:03, 12 May 20201,185 × 1,600 (482 KB)Copyfraud (talk | contribs)British Museum public domain uploads (Copyfraud/BM) Prints about plague in the British Museum 1794 image 2 of 2 #172/190

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