BLAKE, William.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Limited edition, number I of X sets, each comprising 30 plates of Blake's Songs, printed by Michael Phillips in a process which closely follows Blake's own. Phillips inks replica copper plates with historic pigments, printing impressions through an early 19th-century rolling press, on wove paper torn to the same size as Blake's originals.Blake's own relief-etched copper plates, which he used to print his illuminated books, disappeared in the 19th century. To reconstruct them, Phillips studied Blake's sole surviving copper plate (a fragment for America a Prophecy, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), together with monochrome impressions of the Songs printed by Blake and, after his death, by Frederick Tatham. Phillips's research enabled him to recreate Blake's process almost exactly, printing impressions that are all but indistinguishable from Blake's own.

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