Engraving
16.2 x 22.7 cm
Wikimedia Commons
16.2 x 22.7 cm
Wikimedia Commons
The Soul Hovering over the Body, Reluctantly Parting with Life, is an illustration by William Blake for the Scottish poet Robert Blair’s poem “The Grave” (1743), engraved by Luigi Schiavonetti.[1]
In 1805 the engraver turned publisher Robert Hartley Cromek commissioned Blake to produce a series of forty illustrations for an edition of “The Grave”, twenty of which were to be engraved for the book. Blake understood that he was also to do those engravings, but instead Cromek gave the work to Schiavonetti.[2] Blake responded by publishing his Public Address, in which he criticised the work of engravers as being derivative.[3]
See also
- Hippolyte Baraduc
French physician who claimed to have taken photographs of souls leaving the bodies of the deceased. - Watters’ cloud chamberCharged particle detector based on Wilson's cloud chamber, designed to detect the soul leaving the body.
