Relief etching printed in brown ink, with watercolor and pen and black ink on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 7 1/2 x 5 3/8 inches (19.1 x 13.7 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Lettered inside image: "The Divine Image. | To Mercy Pity Peace and Love. | All pray in their distress: | And to these virtues of delight | Return their thankfulness. | For Mercy Pity Peace and Love. | Is God our father dear; | And Mercy Pity Peace and Love. | Is Man his child and care. | For Mercy has a human heart | Pity, a human face: | And Love, the human form divine. | And Peace, the human dress. | Then every man of every clime, | That prays in his distress, | Prays to the human form divine | Love Mercy Pity Peace. | And all must love the human form. | In heathen, turk or jew. | Where Mercy. Love & Pity dwell, | There God is dwelling too."; Lettered on verso, inside image: "The Chimney Sweeper. | When my mother died I was very young, | And my father sold me while yet my tongue, | Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep. | So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep. | Theres little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head | That curl'd like a lambs back, was shav'd, so I said. | Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head's bare. | You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair. | And so he was quiet, & that very night. | As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight, | That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Ned & Jack | Where all of them lock'd up in coffins of black, | And by came an Angel who had a bright key, | And he open'd the coffins & set them all free, | Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run | And wash in a river and shine in the Sun. | Then naked & white, all their bags left behind, | They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind, | And the Angel told Tom if he'd be a good boy, | He'd have God for his father & never want joy, | And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark | And got with our bags & our brushes to work. | Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm. | So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm."
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1992.8.12(8)
Classification:
Prints
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
women | men | child | children | text | trees | plant | vegetation | vine | flowers (plants) | branches | leaf | literary theme | religious and mythological subject | angel
Currently On View:
Not on view
Publications:
Jessica Dillworth, The Divine Image: Jessica Dillworth on William Blake's Virgin and Child (1825), , August 30, 2011, 0 minutes, 33 seconds, http://www.youtube.com/v/4L34YbF1m0k