SENSATIONAL ART FIND

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 24 March 1928, Page 9

SENSATIONAL ART FIND

AN AUCKLAND DISCOVERY. SET OF WILLIAM BLAKE ORIGINALS. AID TO BE WORTH OVER £12,000

Two sisters living quietly together in a little house in Arthur Street, Ellgrs--11 o, Auckland, found recently in a .■;?elected corner of their sitting-room a set of water colour paintings which have proved to be the work of thp -imoii« English poet and painter, Wi 1 - linm Blake, says “The Sun.” “These pictures are worth from £12.000 to £15,000. and their discovery s the most important Blake find of this century. It will not he; long before. English and American dealers are fighting for tlieir possession. Other pictures in the homae are worth •about £SOOO. AUTHENTICITY PROVED.

To prove authenticity of the Auckuuia sea it was necessary to estaons-.. a definite relationsuiup pea,ween Lmne., dina Alb in -Martin. it was known tan,, they were master and pupil, out oorres.amaem.e an Miss Martin's possession prevens that they were- on rnenctly term., and Linnet!, corresponded with Martin after nis arrival in New Zealand. They are vnteitaining letters and one in pai-LR-ular contains .severe criticism ol some , ): f ]\ir Martin’s work, criticism that .o dd have co-nie from none but a master. There is also a letter from Mr Alfred Beil, a famous .stained glass artist, who thanks Mr Martin for a ojyn of the Blake pietunas that were in ais possession. This evidence is almost conclusive, but it is made more so by the fact that Miss Martin has yet another Blake picture in her possession, ft ii,s named “The Wise and Foolish Virgins,” .and in Gi’christ's lit® of Blake it is described as “A very noble work.” The picture, “The Departure of Lot,” which was discovered in the Public Library last year, was. probably also in possession of Mir Martin at one Miss (Martin has also in her pos session four portraits by Linnell, two reing studies of her father and the -ther two of other members of the Martin familv. There is also an oil portrait of the famous early nineteenth century satirist “Peter Pindar,” by the irtist John Opie, BLAKE’S FINEST WORK.

The Blake pictures are an original set of famous “Illustrations to the look of Job,” which is the finest work lone bv him in either of the arts in which he excelled. It is the crowning work of a genius, and in it may be mee.n those qualities which have brought Blake his tardy fame. There is extraordinary imaginative vigour, glorious mastery of line, and marvellous venturesomeness in the use of. colour. Blake biographers have known of the existence of this set, for their painting was one of the few tasks lor which thA artists 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.

HOW THEY CAME TO NIAV ZEALAND.

Their present possessors are Mrs. E. J. Hickson and her sister, Miss MarGin, 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 >e nine a pupil of the famous English landscape,painter, John Linnell. Linncil, 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. Linnel 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 the last labour of this kind was “Illustrations go 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, was struck with >itv at‘Blake’s plight, and commissioned him to make a duplicate set of the illustrations. His commission was merely a polite method of placing Blake on pension He entered into an agrement under which Blake was to produce the pictures at leisure and receive the sum -of £IOO at the rate of to be engraved arid he was to participate further m the profits from the engravings. There were no profits, but Linnell, doing a handsome thing, paid

the poet another £SO on November 10, 1825. Writing to Linuell, Blake says ; “I have, 1 bene\e, clone nearly all that we agreed upon.” The set, which consisted of 21 pictures,' passed into Linnell’s possession, and two years later Blake died. From then on on more was heard of the pictures. W hen 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 lor £5600. Since that time Blake prices have appreciated more than double.