A Letter from William Blake

 

Leonard Baskin

  1922 - 2000 (biography)

1964  

woodengravings, typeset text 

images: various; book: 6 x 4-5/8 x 1/8" 

unsigned, as published 

260 of 500  

pencil editioned on colophon 

Fern/O'Sullivan 460; Gehenna Press: Work of Fifty Years, cat. no. 37; Museum of Fine Arts Boston accession no. 1986.998 

tipped-in woodcuts (4): cream Moriki; text and two additional engravings: thin ivory Frankfurt laid 

published 

artist and Gehenna Press, Northampton, MA (pressmark IV in red on colophon) 

24139 

$500.00 

A slim, small-format illustrated book of William Blake's letter to his most significant patron, Thomas Butts, from January 10, 1802. The two met in 1799 and Butts began making regular payments to the artist and poet not long after; as well, Blake taught Butts' son how to engrave and completed several miniatures of the Butts family between 1801 and 1809. The letter itself is typical of Blake's letters to his closest frinds: confessional, poetic, and touching on religion, science, and the human condition.

Six woodengravings accompany typeset Centaur text, four of them plates printed on cream Moriki Japanese tissue and tipped-in, two printed on the same ivory Frankfurt laid paper as the text. They are unsigned as published save for the third plate which is initialed in the block. It retains its original French marbled paper cover paper, as well as the glued-down title label on the recto. The hand-binding is sturdy. Save for the usual light wear to the cover and spine, and some toning to the endpapers from the glue, this copy of Leonard Baskin's book is in overall excellent condition.

Leonard Baskin printed this work at his world renowned Gehenna Press in Northampton, Massachusetts. Baskin was an ardent admirer of Blake and frequently revisited him as a subject of artistic inspiration.