St. Matthew
William Blake·1799
Historical Context
Blake's St. Matthew from 1799 belongs to his series of biblical paintings commissioned by Thomas Butts, a government official who became Blake's most important single patron and commissioned over fifty paintings over the following decades. Butts's patronage sustained Blake through years of commercial neglect and allowed him to develop the visionary tempera painting technique that he called his 'fresco' method — a combination of glue tempera and sometimes oil on a chalk-prepared board that created a matte, icon-like surface suited to his visionary spiritual imagery. The Evangelists series gave Blake the opportunity to develop his personal mythology alongside traditional Christian iconography.
Technical Analysis
Blake's experimental tempera on canvas technique produces a distinctive matte surface with bold outlines and flattened forms, deliberately rejecting the oil painting conventions of the Royal Academy in favor of what he considered a purer, more spiritual medium.
Provenance
Thomas Butts [1757 - 1845], London, by descent to his son, Thomas Butts, Jr.; Thomas Butts, Jr. [died 1862], London; William Michael Rossetti [1829-1919], London; William Bell Scott [1811-1890], consigned to sale at Sotheby's, London; (Sotheby's, London, July 14, 1892, no. 238, sold to Quaritch); (Quaritch, sold to E.H. van Ingen for Mrs. William Emerson); Mrs. William Emerson, consigned to sale at Sotheby's, London; (Sotheby's London, May 19, 1958, no.12, bought by Agnew for Lady Melchett); Lady Melchett [1928-], sold at Christie's, London; (Christie's London, November 9, 1971, no. 71, bought by Piccadilly Gallery); (Piccadilly Gallery, London, sold to Galleria Galatea); (Galleria Galatea, Turin, sold to private collector, Milan); private collector, Milan; (Ben Elwes Fine Art, London, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
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