File:William Blake - B H Malkin Child.jpg

English: print / book-illustration / paper

stipple etching engraving Print made by William Blake (designed and engraved the plate except the central portrait) Print made by Robert Cooper (probably engraved the stipple portrait) After Richard Morton Paye (central stipple portrait is after a miniature by Paye (Robert Paye or his daughter, forename unknown)) Published in London 1806

Proof of the frontispiece to Benjamin Heath Malkin's "A Father's Memoirs of His Child" (London, 1806); oval stipple portrait of a male child, head and shoulders; surrounds decorated with clouds, rays of light and three figures: an angel flying up the left margin leading a child by the hand, and a woman kneeling right at the edge of a cliff, letting go of the child. 1806 Stipple, engraving and etching

Inscription Content: Annotated in pencil on verso: "Portrait of Thomas Williams Malkin, a wonderful prodigy, who died very young. / (Drawn and engraved by Blake) / Thomas H. Cromek"

Dimensions Height: 217 millimetres Width: 150 millimetres

The portrait is of Thomas Williams Malkin, born in 1795. The frontispiece is to a memoir of Malkin by his father Benjamin Heath Malkin.

This proof was designed and engraved by Blake, except the central stipple portrait. It is a unique impression, printed on scrap paper that has remnants of letterpress text printed at the margin. The letterpress indicates that the paper was from a printing of Hayley's "Ballads" (1802), which Blake illustrated and issued in parts. (Essick 1983)

Apparently Malkin did not like Blake's execution of his design, and Robert Cromek was employed to re-engrave the plate. The British Museum has two proofs of Cromek's print, and a copy of the published book with Cromek's print: see 1856,0712.42, 1867,0413.795 & 1977 U 20 (1).

Associated Title A Father's Memoirs of His Child

Illustration of Benjamin Heath Malkin Portrait of Thomas Williams Malkin

Donated by Thomas Hartley Cromek

Included in a collection of prints by Robert Hartley Cromek that was presented to the British Museum by his son Thomas Hartley Cromek in 1867. (Essick 1983)