‘The Name of the Wicked Shall Rot’: Blake’s Oriental Apotheoses of Nelson and Pitt

Abstract

On 15 May 1809, Blake advertised an exhibition to be held above his brother’s hosiery shop in Broad Street, London. His advertisement particularly addressed an elite public, ‘of the Rich and those who have the direction of public Works’ and the ‘Noblemen and Gentlem[e]n’ subscribers to the Royal Academy and British Institution (E527). Blake objected that his art was excluded from these arenas. His motto, Milton’s dictum ‘Fit Audience find tho’ few’ (E527), suggests that although he did not anticipate many sympathetic viewers he could appeal to connoisseurs of truly inspired art. The accompanying polemical and visionary Descriptive Catalogue would help this specific public to recognise the exhibition’s significance. In May 1809, Blake made his only known invitation to an individual, the Royal Academician and Portrait Painter in Crayons to the King, Ozias Humphry. Blake acknowledges their different estimations of Venetian painting, but adds ‘I inclose a ticket of admission if you should honour my Exhibition with a Visit’(E770). Humphry purchased several of Blake’s illuminated books, although his commission of the Small Book of Designs (c.1796), in which the plates appear without the poetry, suggests he primarily collected the images.¹ Notably, Humphry had worked as a miniature painter in India between 1785 and 1787 and remained interested in the country and its culture, perhaps making him a ‘fit audience’ for paintings Blake modelled on oriental art.