A cache of William Blake watercolours, unearthed in a Glasgow bookshop five years ago, are to be sold in New York after attempts to keep them together in the United Kingdom have failed.
Sotheby's expect the folio of 19 illustrations for Robert
Blair's poem The Grave - the most important offering of works by
the artist ever to appear at auction - to bring $12m-17.5m on May
2.
The imminent sale is the latest twist in a saga that began in 1808
when Blake was paid £21 by publisher Robert Cromek for a group of
40 illustrations - a dozen of which were engraved and helped spread
the artist's fame in the early 19th century. The illustrations were
sold by Cromek's dependants at an Edinburgh auction in 1836 and for
the next 164 years Blake scholars were unaware of their
whereabouts. Then, in the spring of 2001, while browsing through a
secondhand bookshop, Caledonia Books, on Glasgow's Great Western
Road, two Yorkshire book dealers, Paul Williams and Jeffery Bates,
spotted a red morocco slipcase titled in gilt Designs for Blair's
Grave, containing 19 superbly preserved watercolours in their
original mounts.
The dealers acquired the folio and consigned it to Swindon book
auctioneer Dominic Winter, but before an auction scheduled for June
2002, Caledonia Books served a High Court writ on the two Yorkshire
dealers, suing for the return of the illustrations and costs of
more than £15,000. The case also attracted the attention of the
estate that had originally sold the folio to Caledonia Books, and
they joined the proceedings.
An out-of-court settlement was reached before February 2003 when
it was announced that London art dealer Libbie Howie had negotiated
the sale to "an anonymous collector" for an estimated £4.9m. This
was the sum Agnew's had advised the Tate Gallery to pay for the
illustrations.
Ms Howie, while not being drawn on the nationality of her client,
had told ATG: "He is a man who understands the importance of these
watercolours to scholars. Their loan to a museum has not been ruled
out."
In fact, it has recently emerged the purchaser was thought to be
an investment fund that recently applied for an export licence to
sell the folio overseas. A temporary export ban ran out in
September with no party coming forward with a serious intention to
raise the £8.8m the investors were prepared to accept from a
British buyer.
Experts have criticised the splitting up of a unique set that
together illuminates a well-known Gothic musing on death and
redemption.
"In an ideal world they are the sort of thing that should be kept
in this country," David Barrie, director of the Art Fund, Britain's
largest private charity funding the arts, told ATG last week. "The
really heartbreaking thing is to see them go to New York and
probably be broken up and scattered among numerous private
collections." An interview with David Barrie will appear in next
week's issue.
• The folio of engravings will go on display at Sotheby's in New
Bond Street from March 9-15.
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