A rare poetry book by William Blake has sold for a staggering £3.4m ($4.3m), making it one of the most valuable ever.
The 1794 copy of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, illustrated and printed by Blake and his wife Catherine, is one of only six copies printed during Blake’s lifetime that remained in private hands.
This book includes some of Blake’s most celebrated poems, such as ‘The Chimney Sweeper,’ ‘The Little Boy Lost,’ and ‘The Tyger.’
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Featuring 54 pen and watercolour-etched plates, it was originally owned by Blake’s friend and patron Charles Augustus Tulk.
Tulk lent this copy to poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who responded by ranking the poems.
The book, previously held by a private collector, ignited a bidding war at Sotheby’s New York.
The undisclosed buyer paid two-and-a-half times the £1.4m estimate, as it was the first time in 35 years a copy had been sold at auction.
A Sotheby’s New York spokesperson stated: ‘William Blake, the visionary poet and artist, was renowned for his unique method of relief-etching, allowing him to combine text and illustration in his works.
Blake’s innovative techniques and his wife Catherine’s involvement in colouring the plates make each copy a distinctive artifact.
This is one of the most valuable and rarest poetry books ever to come to auction.
This copy is one of only six printed during Blake’s lifetime that remain in private hands, and it is the earliest printed copy to appear at auction since 1989.’
Blake (1757-1827), a poet, painter, and printmaker, was little known during his lifetime but has since become recognized as a seminal Romantic Age poet.
His poem ‘Jerusalem’ was published in the preface of Milton: A Poem in Two Books in 1808.
