William Blake's illustrations of Paradise Lost

The illustrations demonstrate his critical engagement with the text, specifically his efforts to redeem the "errors" he perceived in his predecessor's work.

Nine of the paintings were sold at Messrs. Foster in 1853 to J. C. Strange, passing through several other hands before they were acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, their present owner.

Munro further complicated matters by selling the three paintings to separate buyers at Christie's in 1868.

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.

[1] 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.

[2] 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).