A detail of chaucer's canterbury pilgrims by william blake, copper engraving, 2nd state (1810). Copper engraving, with additions in watercolor by the artist signature and imprint, painted in fresco by william blake & by him engraved & published october 8. 1810, at no 28. Corner of broad street golden square; inscribed below: chaucers canterbury pilgrims, and with the names of the pilgrims, reeve, chaucer, clerk of oxenford, cook, miller, wife of bath, merchant, parson, man of law, plowman, physician, franklin, 2 citizens, shipman, the host, sompnour, manciple, pardoner, monk, friar, a citizen, lady abbess, nun, 3 priests, squires, yeoman, knight, squire. The engraving is known in five states. Blake's use of line engraving, emulating the styles of early printmakers albrecht dürer and lucas van leyden, evokes the character of chaucer's poetry. Blake painted the pilgrims after a quarrel with r. H. Cromek and thomas stothard regarding whether the commission had originally been blake's. The painting was exhibited at his brother's soho shop in 1809, and this engraving was created from it. Date: 1810.
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