BLAKE PICTURES

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 March 1928, Page 7

BLAKE PICTURES

FOUND IN AUCKLAND ♦ _ INTERESTING STORY REVEALED (Special to •‘Star.’’) AUCKLAND, March 23. Two sisters living quietly together in a little house in Arthur Street, Ellerslie, found recently in a neglected corner of their sitting room, a set of water colour paintings, which have proved to be the work oi the famous English poet and painter, William Blake. These pictures are worth from £12,000 to £15,000, and their discovery is the most important Blake find of this century. Other pictures in the house are worth about £5OOO. The Blake pictures are an original set of the famous illustrations to the Book of Job, which is the finest work done lr r him in either of the arts in which he excelled. Blake’s biographers have known of the existence of this set, for their painting was one of the few tasks for which the artist received helpful pay. They have frequently been written about in England, but no English eyes have seen them for almost 80 years. Since 1851 they have been in Auckland. Their present possessors are Mrs E. J. Hicklon and her sister Miss Martin, daughters of the late Mr Albin Martin, an English artist who arrived in Auckland in 1851.

Mr Martin, who was born in 1813, ■was associated with Blake as a. child and in 1834 he became a pupil of the famous English landscape painter, John Linnell, Blake’s patron. Linnell as a young man was among the first to recognise Blake’s genius, and he did much to make easier the later days of the poet’s life. Linnell and Thomas Butts, whom he met much earlier in his life, were the only patrons that he had. He did much work on commission for Butts, and their last labour of this kind was “Illustrations to the Book of Job.” This his most ambitious art work for 20 years, was done in 1823. At this time Blake an ageing man was in dire want. Linnell, then a young man, with no great sums of money to spare w'as struck with pity at Blake’s plight, and commissioned him to execute h duplicate set of the “Illustrations.” The set which consisted of 21 pictures passed into Linnell’s possession, and in 1827 Blake died. From then on, no more was heard of the pictures. When an Auckland Blake student was shown the pictures possessed by Mrs Hickson, he felt certain that this was the set done for Linnell, for the Butts’ set was sold at the dispersal of the Crewe Blake collection in 1903 for £5,600. Since that time, Blake prices have appreciated more than double. To prove the authenticity of the Auckland set it was necessary to establish definite relationship between Linnell and Albin Martin. It was known that they were master and pupil, but correspondence in Miss Martin’s possession proves that they were on friendly terms and Linnell corresponded with Martin after his arrival in New Zealand. Thej r are entertaining letters and one in particular contains severe criticism of some of.Mr Martin’s work, criticism that could have come from none but a master. There is also a letter from Alfred Bell, a famous stained glass artist, who thanks Mr Martin for a loan of the Blake pictures that were in his possession. This evidence is almost conclusive but it is made more so by the fact that Miss Martin has another Blake picture in her possession. It is named “The Wise and Foolish Virgins” and in Gilchrist’s “Life of Blake” it is described as a noble work. The picture, “The Departure of Lot,” which was discovered in the public library last year, was probably also in the possession of MiMartin at one time.