Death's Door (engraved by Luigi Schiavonetti for Robert Blair's 'The Grave')

William Blake

In October of 1805, Blake was commissioned by the engraver and would-be publisher Robert H. Cromek to prepare forty drawings illustrating Robert Blair's "The Grave" , a popular "Graveyard" school poem first published in 1743. Cromek planned to select twenty of these designs for a de luxe edition of the poem.

In Cromek's first prospectus of November 1805, Blake is named as both the designer and engraver of fifteen designs. The prospectus further states that "the original Drawings, and a Specimen of the Stile of Engraving, may be seen at the Proprietor's, Mr. Cromek." The "Specimen" is probably a white-line etching of Deaths Door. Its rugged and primitive boldness, coupled with public reaction to such a "Style of Engraving," apparently convinced Cromek to find another craftsman to engrave Blake's designs.

In a second prospectus, also of November 1805, Cromek announced that Luigi (or Louis) Schiavonetti would engrave twelve designs for the new edition. Blake had lost both the chance to introduce one of his highly individual graphic techniques into a commercial project and the potentially lucrative commission to engrave his own designs. His relationship with Cromek soon descended into anger and argument. The volume with Schiavonetti's engravings was not published until 1808.