William Blake 1757-1827

The present drawing, although unpublished, is thought to be part of William Blake’s so-called ‘Visionary Heads Series’. He undertook this project with his friend and fellow artist John Varley (1778-1842). Between 1819 and 1825, with Varley’s encouragement, Blake executed a number of drawings illustrating portraits of historical and astrological characters. John Varley, who was a firm believer in the material presence of visions, planned to use Blake’s drawings to illustrate a four-part Treaties on Zodiacal Physiognomy. However, in the end only one volume of this treatise was published.

It is not clear exactly who Blake has depicted in this work. The heraldic decoration of a Griffin on the helmet suggests western European costume, however the figure may simply be a fanciful amalgam of western European and Levantine imagery.  

Among the ‘Visionary Head’ drawings owned by the William Blake collector Graham Robertson and sold in 1949 was a ‘head in a tall hat of the Italian Renaissance’, a description that is similar to the present lot, (see Christie’s, London, 22 July 1949, part of lot 58).