WILLIAM BLAKE
146 Satan Exulting over Eve
Graphite, pen and black ink, and watercolor over color
print; H: 42.6 cm (i6^3 4in.); W: 53.5 cm (2iI/i6in.)
84.00.49 (SEE PLATE 16)
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: At bottom right" corner,
signed and dated WBlake 1795 in brown ink.
PROVENANCE: Mrs. William Blake(?); Frederick Tat-
ham(?); Joseph Hogarth(P); John Ruskin(?); Falser; Wil-
liam Bateson, California; Gregory Bateson, California;
art market, London.
EXHIBITIONS: Works by William Blake, Carfax and Co.,
London, January, 1904. Frescoes, Prints and Drawings by
William Blake, Carfax and Co., London, June-July 1906,
no. 34. Works by William Blake, Art Museum, Not-
tingham Castle, 1914, no. 37. Works by William Blake,
Whitworth Institute, Manchester, 1914, no. 57. Blake
Centenary Exhibition, Burlington Fine Arts Club, Lon-
don, 1927, no. 38 (catalogue by A. G. B. Russell). Wil-
liam Blake Bicentennial Exhibition, Achenbach Founda-
tion for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San
Francisco, 1957. William Blake, Tate Gallery, London,
March-May 1978, no. 8 6 (catalogueby M. Butlin). Wil-
liam Blake and His Followers, Achenbach Foundation for
Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,
December 1982-February 1983.BIBLIOGRAPHY: W. M. Rossetti, 'Annotated Catalogue
of Blake's Pictures and Drawings," in A. Gilchrist, Life
of William Blake (London, 1863), vol. 2, p. 223, no. 109;
2ndedn. (London, 1880), vol. 2, p. 235, no. 132 (as "The
Almighty Accusing Eve"); idem, The Rossetti Papers
1862-1870 (New York, 1903), pp. 16-17; W. G. Rob-
ertson, "Supplementary List" (to Rossetti's "Annotated
Catalogue"), in A. Gilchrist, Life of William Blake, 3rd
edn. (London, 1907), pp. 411, 451, under no. 179; E. T.
Cook and A. Wedderburn, eds., The Works of John Rus-
kin (London, 1909), vol. 36, pp. 32-33; L. Binyon, The
Drawings and Engravings of William Blake (London,
1922), p. 9; D. Figgis, The Paintings of William Blake
(London, 1925), p. 71; G. Keynes, William Blake's Illus-
trations to the Bible (London, 1957), p. 2, no. 9a; M. But-
lin, "The Bicentenary of William Blake," Burlington
Magazine 100 , no. 658 (January 1958), p. 43; A. Blunt,
The Art of William Blake (New York, 1959), pp. 58-59,
62; J. Beer, Blake's Humanism (London, 1968), pp. 192,
256-257; A. T. Kostelanetz, "Blake's 1795 Color Prints:
An Interpretation," in A. H. Rosenfeld, ed., William
Blake: Essays for S. Foster Damon (Providence, 1969), p.
123; D. Bindman, The Complete Graphic Works of William
Blake (London, 1978), p. 477, no. 325; M. Butlin, "Cat-
aloguing William Blake," in R. N. Essick and P. Pearce,
eds., Blake in His Time (Bloomington and London,
1978), p. 84; M. Butlin, The Paintings and Drawings of
William Blake (New Haven, 1981), p.p. 157, 160, no. 292 ;
R. N. Essick, "Blake in the Marketplace, 1982-83,"
Blake, An Illustrated Quarterly 18, no. 2 (Fall 1984), pp. 68,
70 , 75-SATAN EXULTING OVER EVE is ONE OF THE GROUP
of twelve color prints of 1795 which are among the most
impressive and complex of Blake's graphic oeuvre
(Bindman 1978, nos. 324-336; Butlin 1981, nos. 289-
329). The process he used appears to have consisted of
drawing and brushing a design and broad color areas
onto a piece of mill board, printing them on a piece of
paper, and working them over considerably in water-
color and pen and ink. Each version of the various de-
signs is therefore unique, and in no case are more than
three variants of a design known to survive. Their titles
range from The Creation of Adam to Newton, and their
subjects are powerful reflections of Blake's philosophical
outlook without necessarily having been conceived as a
unified series.
Satan Exulting over Eve is known in two versions;
the other is in the collection of John Craxton, London
(Butlin 1981, no. 291). The latter is clearly the second pull
of the print; Satan's far leg is missing and there is consid-
erable overpainting. The subject recalls Milton's Paradise
Lost, but cannot be directly connected with any passage
in it (Butlin 1978, no. 86). As has been noted several
times, this print appears to have been paired with another
in the series, Elohim Creating Adam (London, Tate Gal-
lery, inv. 5055), and it has been proposed that it "repre-
sents the second stage of the Fall, the division into two
sexes" (Butlin 1981, no. 289).324 BRITISH SCHOOL • BLAKE