The Ghost of a Flea

The Ghost of a Flea is a miniature painting by the English poet, painter and printmaker William Blake, held in the Tate Gallery, London.

[2] Fantastic, spiritual art was popular in Britain from around 1770 to 1830,[3] and during this time Blake often worked on unearthly, supernatural panels to amuse and amaze his friends.

Varley described the scene: "As I was anxious to make the most correct investigation in my power, of the truth of these visions, on hearing of this spiritual apparition of a Flea, I asked him if he could draw for me the resemblance of what he saw: he instantly said, 'I see him now before me.'

[2] His massive neck is similar to that of a bull and holds a disproportionally small head, marked by glaring eyes and open jaws, and a venomous slithering tongue.

[15] According to the art critic Jonathan Jones, the flea is depicted as an "evil, gothic, grotesque stalking through a starry realm between stage curtains.

Beneath the curtain folds, the flesh of the flea and bright stars, Blake placed a thin foil of "white" gold which he made from gold-silver alloy.

[16] The painting was created using Blake's distinctive tempera technique, which he describes in the lower right of the panel, beneath the shell gold signature, as "fresco".

[17] On the reverse of the panel is written, "The Vision of the Spirit that inhabits the body of a Flea, and which appeared to the late Mr. Blake, the Designer of the vignettes for Blair Grave and the Book of Job.

[18] Although Blake was singular in his ability to directly transcribe visions onto canvas or paper, a number of visual and literary sources can be detected in this work.

[19] Comparisons have been made to Henry Fuseli's monstrous imps, while the image of the flea echos figures in Blake's earlier work, and his scaly body is similar to the monster in his 1805 pen and ink drawing Pestilence: Death of the First Born.

A label on the reverse of the canvas states that the panel was sold by Albert in February 1878, a fact confirmed by an inscription written by the poet and artist William Bell Scott (1811–1890) on the inside back cover of the Blake-Varley Sketchbook which reads, "I have since getting this book [in 1870], bought the painting of the "Ghost" of the Flea, from Mr Varley of Oakley St. Chelsea, son of John Varley".

It was further treated when the exhibition ended by Stanley Littlejohn (1877–1917),[24] who, in the words of the Blake collector W. Graham Robertson, lifted "the veil of darkness...from it without any impairing of the surface, and the picture now appears exactly as described by Allan Cunningham.