page_title: William Blake's illustrations of On the Morning of Christ's Nativity
section_title: Provenance
hierarchical_section_title: William Blake's illustrations of On the Morning of Christ's Nativity / Provenance
caption_attribution_description: Watercolor Illustration to Milton's On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, by William Blake
context_page_description: William Blake drew and painted illustrations for John Milton's nativity ode On the Morning of Christ's Nativity between 1803 and 1815. A total of 16 illustrations are extant: two sets of six watercolours each, and an additional four drawings in pencil.
  The dating of the sets is unknown, as is Blake's intended sequence for the illustrations. The two sets of watercolours are known as the "Butts set" and the "Thomas set", after their respective patrons, or as the "Huntington set" and the "Whitworth set" after the Huntington Library and the Whitworth Art Gallery, which now hold the sets in their collections.
context_section_description: There is little record of the provenance of the Thomas set or the Butts set before 1852 and 1872, which has led to disputes about the dating. What is known is that the "Thomas set" was commissioned by the Reverend Joseph Thomas, who had also commissioned illustrations to Milton's Comus and Paradise Lost from Blake. No contract for the commission is extant, but the commissioning probably took place in 1809, which is the year in which the illustrations were completed. Blake was eager to accept the commission, according to G. E. Bentley, because "Milton illustrations were a kind of work which Blake could not resist." They presumably stayed in the Revd Thomas's family until they were bought at Sotheby's from an anonymous seller in 1872. By 1876 they were in the collection of J.E. Taylor, who gave them to the Whitworth in 1892. 
  Even less is known about the dates of composition for the "Butts set" - between 1811 and 1820, Blake created at least thirty three designs for Thomas Butts, which included the illustrations of On the Morning of Christ's Nativity. Later, they passed from Butts to his son, who sold them at Sotheby's in 1852, passed through several more hands, were sold at Christie's in 1912, and in 1916 were sold to Henry Huntington.
caption: The Overthrow of Apollo and the Pagan Gods, watercolour, 25 x 19.3 cm, 1809. The figure of Apollo in this illustration is a combination of the Apollo Belvedere and the Laocoön
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