William Blake, Sketch for "The Thought of Death alone, the Fear Destroys"
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland, 1932.318 · The Cleveland Museum of Art, Open Access (CC0)View original →
William Blake

Sketch for "The Thought of Death alone, the Fear Destroys"

c. 1795

Current Collection

Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Medium
graphite on paper
Dimensions
17 × 30.8 cm
Status
In Museum Collection
Collect24 Art ID
C24-1103267

This sketch of a shepherd sleeping with his dog at the edge of a precipice relates to one of the nearly 550 watercolors that William Blake created for the 1797 edition of Edward Young’s The Complaint, and the Consolation; or, Night Thoughts, a long poem about death and salvation originally published in 1742–45. Blake worked extensively with books as an author and illustrator, and also engraved the work of others for publication. Night Thoughts was one of his most ambitious commercial projects. Unfortunately, only one of the four planned volumes was ever produced, since Richard Edwards, who ha…

Provenance

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland, 1932.318

Registry history

  • c. 1795 — Recorded in the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art — drawings

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