In Blake's mythology, Albion's fall from a divine androgyny to a sexual nature divides him into the Four Zoas, their spectres (representative of hypocritical morality), and their emanations (female halves). In the latter case, Blake employed visual barriers to separate the elements from different scenes, such as the arc of the bower in Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve. While some of these, such as Satan, Sin and Death: Satan Comes to the Gates of Hell, depict specific scenes from the epic others, such as Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve, are syntheses of several scenes. There are twelve plates in each of the Paradise Lost sets, one for each of the books in the poem. In Blake's mythology, Adam and Satan are two extremes of the fallen Albion. Currently Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve and The Creation of Eve are in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, and Michael Foretells the Crucifixion is in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum. An entry in Linnell's journal dates the commission to. Like the Linnell set of William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job, these were commissioned by Blake's patron John Linnell, and traced by Linnell from the Butts set. These are exactly the same as their corresponding entries in the Butts set in both size and composition, the major difference being their loose handling of the watercolor. The Linnell set is incomplete – it contains only Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve, The Creation of Eve and Michael Foretells the Crucifixion. 1 was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1869, No. Munro further complicated matters by selling the three paintings to separate buyers at Christie's in 1868. The other three were sold to one "Fuller" at an unknown date, from whom they passed to H.A.J. Strange, passing through several other hands before they were acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, their present owner. Nine of the paintings were sold at Messrs. Today it remains divided between four museums. offered the individual paintings for sale at several auctions, resulting in the dispersal of the set. In the early 1850s, Butts' son Thomas Butts Jr. Dated 1808, they were commissioned from Blake by his patron Thomas Butts, who also commissioned many paintings on biblical themes from Blake.
The dimensions of the Butts set, also known as the "large set", are 19.5x15.5 inches, nearly twice that of the Thomas set. Henry Huntington reunited the works in 1914, and today they are still in the collection of the Huntington Library.
By 1876 they were in the collection of Alfred Aspland, who by 1885 took them to Sotheby's again, dispersing the set among several buyers. Thomas' grandson inherited them from his father, and sold them at Sotheby's in 1872. Although the sheets were trimmed at some time, obliterating the date from several, some still retain the date of 1807, establishing the year of their completion. They were commissioned by the Reverend Joseph Thomas at an unrecorded date, sometime before 1807. The paintings of the Thomas set are each approximately 10x 8.25 inches. Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve (1808), version from the "Butts set"
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