First Edition of William Blake’s Songs of Experience Returns Home to UK

Peter Harrington has confirmed the return to Britain of William Blake’s illuminated books Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794) which have recently been acquired on behalf of a private client at auction from the estate of Maurice Sendak.

The first edition of Songs of Experience is one of only four known of the extremely rare first-issue copies ever printed. Only two remain complete, and this is the only one in private hands. It has not resided in any UK collection for more than 40 years, passing through some of the most significant collectors of the last two centuries from Blake’s early patron the English miniaturist Ozias Humphry, to several great bibliophiles of the 20th century before being sold to Sendak in 1994.

The book was Blake’s first use of colour printing, a radical and visionary artistic process, and forms the darker counterpart to Songs of Innocence, together comprising Blake’s enduring poetic vision.

The accompanying copy of Songs of Innocence, one of the first five printed, is the only hand-colored green-ink copy in private hands and one of the most visually delicate examples known, with 21 plates hand-colored by William Blake and his wife Catherine in pastels.

“The collector we will hand them over to brings deep knowledge, discernment, and a genuine reverence for their significance, and is committed to stewarding them with the highest standards of care and connoisseurship,” said Pom Harrington, owner of Peter Harrington.

Of the remaining three Songs of Experience first editions, a complete copy is held at The Yale Center for British Art, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has a collection of plates from a copy dispersed in the 19th century, with a couple of leaves also in private collections, and the National Gallery of Canada also holds a copy that is missing one plate. No complete copy is currently in a UK institution or private collection.