In 1784, William Blake exhibited works at the Royal Academy entitled A Breach in a City the Morning after the Battle and War Unchained by an Angel. Fire, Pestilence, and Famine Following (Butlin, The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake 187, hereafter referred to as Butlin; numbers are catalogue entries). The latter work, which may have been paired causally with A Breach, is lost, and the identity of the former is a matter of debate. Some critics assume that the version exhibited is either the one now in the Ackland Museum of Art (Robertson 175; Blunt 11n27) or the one in the Carnegie Museum of Art (Cummings 160, Rosenblum 154n27), while others believe that it too is lost and that the Carnegie and Ackland versions are c. 1790-95 and c. 1795-1800 respectively (Pressly 138-39; Butlin 188). In this study, I argue that there are strong technical and aesthetic reasons to believe that the drawing in the Ackland Museum is both the second version and the one exhibited in 1784, and that the first two versions of Pestilence are also incorrectly dated. My intention, though, is not only to argue that Robertson and Blunt were correct about the Ackland version of A Breach, but also to examine why and how the same artifact can appear to one art historian to have been produced c. 1784 and to another as late as 1800. While disagreement about dates is not unprecedented in Blake studies, this one is unusually pronounced and raises serious questions about the assumptions and kinds of evidence (e.g., historical documents, techniques, materials, styles, and themes) used to date these and other Blake designs. Indeed, by redating versions of A Breach, I am not only redating versions of Pestilence but am also challenging currently accepted ideas of Blake's pictorial style and development in the 1780s and 1790s. Furthermore, the inconsistencies in the hypotheses used to date and sequence the versions of A Breach and Pestilence require our rethinking the date and place of a particular sketch (illus. 12) in the evolution of Pestilence—which, in turn, questions Blake’s use and understanding of sketching in general.

A Breach and Pestilence were first described in Alexander Gilchrist's Life of Blake (1863), but the descriptions are the source of much subsequent confusion. Gilchrist was unaware that there was more than one version of A Breach. From the 1784 Royal Academy exhibition catalogue, he knew of the exhibited version and of War Unchained, but he had seen neither work (1: 54). He identifies the theme of both as “the supreme despicableness of War” and claims that they “gave birth about twenty years later to four very fine water-colour drawings,… Fire, Plague, Pestilence, and Famine” (1: 54). By “Pestilence” Gilchrist apparently means Pestilence: The Death of the First Born (Butlin 442), because he had titled the c. 1805 version of Pestilence (illus. 15) as “Plague” and had it reproduced as a wood-engraving by W. J. Linton and inserted to face page 54. [1] Gilchrist's mistitling suggests that he was also unaware that there was more than this one version of Pestilence, since both early versions were so titled by Blake (illus. 13, 14).

In 1862, a year after Gilchrist died and a year before the Life of Blake was published, William Michael Rossetti, using Gilchrist's lists and those of William Haines, began to compile for the Life the first catalogue raisonné of Blake's drawings and paintings. [2]  Like Gilchrist, Rossetti had seen neither War Unchained nor the two early versions of Pestilence, though he had examined the sketch (241, #18). [3]  Unlike Gilchrist, he had also examined the Carnegie version of A Breach, which had sold in “Mr. [Elhanan] Bicknell's Sale, [May] 1863” as “The Plague,” a title that Rossetti recognized was “decidedly a mistake,” since that was what Gilchrist and he called the c.1805 version of Pestilence (207, #55). Rossetti apparently identified the Bicknell/Carnegie drawing as A Breach, the work exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1784 (201, #5), on the basis of its subject—a breached city wall filled with dead soldiers and mourners—since the work itself was not inscribed or titled or in any other way identified by Blake.

Like Gilchrist, Rossetti was unaware that there was more than one version of A Breach, Bicknell's version being the only one that he actually examined. He knew of the Fogg version, but he knew it as War and appears not to have realized that it was a version of A Breach. He knew of War because it was “mentioned” by that title “in the account” (209, #68), by which he means Thomas Butts's account of 12 May 1805 (Life 2: 256; see Bentley, Blake Records 572). But Rossetti lists War twice, implying that there were two works so titled. The second he records as belonging to a “Mr. Fuller” (238, #227), whose Blake collection of nine watercolors he knew only through an 1852 Sotheby's sale catalogue. [4] By 1876, War belonged to J. F. Hall, who lent it to the Burlington Fine Arts Club exhibition. One assumes that Rossetti saw it at that time, since he reviewed the exhibition for Academy (9 [1876]: 364-65). In his revised 1880 lists, he continues to record it as War, the work “mentioned in the account” (216, #75), but deletes the second reference because he comes to believe that Fuller's War is War Unchained of 1784. [5]  More confusing still, Rossetti fails to mention the connection of Hall's War to A Breach, despite that connection having been explicitly made in the 1876 exhibition catalogue. War is listed there as “Breach in the City Wall: Morning After the Battle. Water colour. No. 5 in Catalogue, ‘Gilchrist's Life.’ Exhibited at the Royal Exhibition, 1784” (entry 185). 

In 1863, Rossetti was unaware of the Ackland Breach altogether. This version, the only one titled by Blake, was then owned by Alfred Aspland, whose extensive collection of Blake watercolors and drawings was then unknown to Rossetti. Aspland lent his version to the 1876 Burlington Fine Arts Club exhibition, where it was described as “A Breach in the City: The Morning After the Battle. Water colour. This title is written on it by Blake, with the date apparently of 1780. This drawing, or another with the same title, was exhibited in 1784. See No. 5 in Catalogue, ‘Gilchrist's Life’” (entry 157). The Burlington title differs slightly from the inscription on the watercolor itself, which reads, “A Breach in A City the Morning / after the Battle / W Blake inv & d.” The supposed date of “1780” is a misreading of “inv & d,” one recorded by Rossetti in 1880 (208, #5). The ampersand—if that is what it is—is completely indistinct (illus. 8). Nor are there periods after it, “inv,” and “W” (pace Robertson 175), or after “inv” and “&” (pace Butlin 191, Pressley 138). In his revised 1880 lists, Rossetti records the Aspland/Ackland version at the end of the entry for the Carnegie version (208, #5), but he fails to indicate which version was exhibited in 1784.

Aspland's version was acquired in 1904 by W. Graham Robertson, who reproduced it in his 1907 edition of Gilchrist's Life as the one exhibited (1: 54). It is so identified in his Blake Catalogue of 1952 (175-77, pl. 56), and his view was apparently shared by Kerrison Preston—who edited the catalogue and acquired the work in 1961, a year before it went to the Ackland Museum—and shared by Anthony Blunt as well (11n27, pl. 8b). These owners and critics do not sequence the early versions of A Breach or pair them with versions of Pestilence, nor do they explain their reasons for choosing the Ackland Breach as the one exhibited. [6] Apparently, they believe their choice is self-evident, probably because the inscription suggests as much, since it is the title by which the work is identified in the Royal Academy catalogue. At any rate, they clearly do not find the style of the Ackland Breach to be inconsistent with Blake's pen and wash style of the mid-1780s.

Frederick Cummings and Robert Rosenblum believe that Blake exhibited the Carnegie version and that the Ackland version followed, though how long afterwards they do not say. This position, articulated in Cummings's 1968 exhibition catalogue, maintains that the “care, detail, and emotional conviction” of the Carnegie version suggest that it was the version exhibited, whereas the Ackland version, because it “is less detailed, [and] has less conviction,” is but “a simpler reworking” of the Carnegie (160). [7] Placing the Carnegie version before the Ackland is certainly correct, but not because the Carnegie is more detailed and carefully executed than the subsequent version. The same stylistic features characterize revisions or second versions of other works, while relaxed handling may reflect an artist’s first thoughts on a subject. Indeed, the Carnegie's companion piece, the Bateson version of Pestilence (illus. 13), is sketchier and was shown less care than the subsequent Bristol version (illus. 14).

While an increase or decrease in detail does not reliably mark sequence, changes between versions that are also corrections do. For example, in the bottom left corner of the Carnegie version (illus. 1), the right foot of the soldier crosses the line forming the arm of another soldier, rendering the foot transparent. In the Ackland version (illus. 2), Blake corrected this mistake by repositioning the arm. The hand retains its original gesture, but instead of grasping a strap that appears connected to a shield, contrary to the manner in which the bottom shield is held, it now grasps either the hilt of a sword or the top (and wrong end) of a banner. The figure to the right, outstretched in the beached wall, is solidly on top of bodies in the Ackland version, whereas in the Carnegie version this figure is tentatively drawn over and through a curved line that apparently was meant to suggest a shield rather than the figure's chest or robe. The high-arching back of the mourning woman was repeated in the Ackland version but then erased and lowered, while her long neck was shortened, making her proportions more realistic. Perhaps the most significant alteration was the addition of the old man's crutches in the Ackland version, though traces of them are visible in the Carnegie, where the right one goes only as high as the sash and the left one seems to have been made of glass, passing through a hand (illus. 1). Blake apparently added the crutches after he had drawn the hand—that is, he decided to add them only alter the composition had been designed and drawn in ink. Initially, the hand may have grasped the hilt of a sword, pole, or spear, which in turn may have suggested the idea of crutches, an idea developed in the second version.

The fingers and toes of the figures in the Carnegie version are generally more detailed and carefully drawn than those in the Ackland, but the assumption that the Carnegie version in its entirety was shown more “care” ignores the many drawing mistakes Blake had nude, as well as the fact that the Carnegie version is unfinished. Not only are the crutches incomplete, but the old man’s robe, painted blue above the sash, was left uncolored below and to the left of the sash. Such an assumption also ignores the very weak blocking of the Carnegie design. For example, the breach is so crowded with bodies and armor that it lacks visual and thematic focus, expressing the effect of war on a city’s defenses, instead of the horrors of war per se. By removing the shield at the far left and the soldier left of the casket, Blake shows more of the wall and, more significantly, more of the soldier outside the wall. This soldier, lost among bodies in the Carnegie version, is now distinct with highlighted chest and face, representing the numerous but faceless dead behind him and the wall. By simplifying the configuration of bodies at the breach and giving the distant dead a face, Blake expresses more clearly the theme that “War” is the fountain of “bitter Death & of corroding Hell / Till Brotherhood is changd into a Curse” (Milton 35: 3-4).

This theme is far more overt in the 1805 version (illus. 3), where the “enemy” dead, rather than being dehumanized, are delineated as carefully as those lying inside the walls.  The top figure appears collapsed in despair over his comrades rather than one of the dead; embracing two of them, he is analogous to the woman mourning her lover. In the Ackland version, the two camps are not yet so neatly parallel, but they are moving it that direction, as is suggested by the woman in the killing fields. Like the figures standing beside the wall, she witnesses the carnage, but :he sympathy she elicits is due more to her moving cautiously and looking apprehensively, gestures of fear suggested by her dramatically outstretched hands and, most significantly, her wide open eye. Both gestures are missing in the Carnegie version, where she is drawn less expressively and has no eye at all. The removal of the soldier left of the casket also reveals that the Ackland version is moving toward paralleling the warring camps. This middle soldier, with the awkwardly formed armor, is replaced by even clearer symbols of war: a spear—enlarged dramatically, relative to the Carnegie version—and a banner. Implements that are thrust upward in military gallantry lie fallen and futile.  The addition of the infant and crutches in the Acklacd version also infuse the overall situation, rather than the breached wall, with horror, implying that everyone, from newborns to mothers, soldiers, and aged, is equally affected by war. The Ackland version is simpler, but it is not simplistic.  Blake’s changes, generated by aesthetic and technical needs, resulted in a more focused, powerful, and expressive work.

The inference, then, that the Carnegie was the version exhibited, based entirely on the premises that it is more carefully executed than the Ackland version and that care reflects Blake's intention to exhibit, is unconvincing. I suspect that Blake executed the Carnegie version first, recognized his various mistakes while washing the design, and proceeded immediately to produce s second, revised version, which he inscribed most likely with an eye to exhibition. Blake chose to repeat the composition on wove paper instead of laid—the support he used for the Carnegie version—which also suggests that he intended to exhibit the new and corrected version of his design, since the wove, the heavier and more expensive paper, took dark washes better, and since the three extant watercolors Blake exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1785 were also executed on wove paper. [8]

This scenario, however, differs completely from the one Martin Butlin proposes. Butlin believes Cumming’s sequence but believes also that both versions of A Breach are too “accomplished” for 1784, that both were produced in the 1790s, possibly five to 10 years apart, and that the exhibited version is lost. The Carnegie version, he argues, “seems rather too advanced for the work exhibited in 1784, being somewhat freer and more accomplished than that of the illustrations to Tiriel of c. 1789, to which it is otherwise fairly close. It is probably the companion to the Bateson collection Pestilence of the early 1790s” (189). Butlin dates the Carnegie and Bateson works c. 1790-95. He concedes that the Ackland Breach “has sometimes been confused with that exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1784,” but he notes that its “style is somewhat more relaxed: for instance the head of the standing woman on the right is no longer in strict, classical profile” (193). He dates the Ackland version c. 1795-1800.

If the Carnegie and Ackland versions appear more accomplished than the Tiriel illustrations—which neither does to me—it may be because they are nearly twice their size (which accounts for their handling “being somewhat freer”) and were executed as autonomous works, whereas the illustrations have some of the stiffness characteristic of designs executed to be engraved, in which washes are laid in precisely to facilitate the engraver's effort to translate them into linear codes. The “early 1790s” date for the Bateson Pestilence, with which the Carnegie Breach is linked, is itself suspect.  It is based on two premised: first, that the Bateson version stylistically resembles the pen and wash drawing, The House of Death, and second, that this drawing is c. 1790 (Butlin 190, 259). But the second premise is based on its style appearing to be “a later development of the style and technique of the pen and wash drawings of the 1780s,” a set of drawings that excludes all versions of A Breach and Pestilence (Butlin 259). The logic, in other words, is circular. Moreover, the c. 1790 date of The House of Death is relative to that of The Good and Evil Angels, a watercolor dated c. 1793-94 because it follows plate 4 of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, which is supposedly 1790-93 (Butlin 257; Bentley, Blake Books 285). House is clearly before Angels, and Angels seems easy enough to date; the problem is that Angelscould be as early as 1790, because that is most likely the end date for Marriage(Viscomi, Idea chap. 26). If the sequence and spacing hold—and I believe they do—then House dates from the mid-1780s.

The dates for the Carnegie and Ackland versions of A Breach are in part derived from those of their pendants, the Bateson and Bristol versions of Pestilence (illus. 13, 14). It is probably true that the paired works share the same date. However, if one version of Pestilence was executed before 1790 then both were, for they were executed very close to one another, and not five to 10 years apart. The Bateson version, which is certainly not as accomplished as the Tiriel illustrations, is sketchier than the Bristol version, with the gravedigger's face redrawn so that the chin rests on the chest, an alteration retained in the Bristol. Other than this difference, they are exceedingly close compositionally and stylistically. In both versions, the hair color of the two women is yellow, the hair on three of the men is orangish-brown, the skirts of the front pallbearer and gravedigger are orange and yellow respectively, and the background wash is a yellowish grey. [9] Given that both versions are essentially monochromatic wash drawings with touches of color, the same palette and placing of colors strongly suggest that the first and second versions were executed and finished very near to one other. Had there been years between versions, one would expect differences as pronounced as those between the second and third versions. Indeed, such differences in coloring and/or design mark all versions of works reproduced a year or more after the first, even when the new versions were modeled closely on the original composition. Compare, for example, the second versions of Paradise Lost, Comus, House of Death, God Judging Adam, and Good and Evil Angels (Butlin 536, 528, 320, 294, 323) with their models (Butlin 529, 527, 259, 257, 258).  Copies of illuminated books from different editions also show pronounced differences, whereas copies from the same edition—say, Songs of Innocence copies B and E—are exceedingly similar, sharing the same palette and coloring style and differing only in the placement of some colors (see Viscomi, Idea chap. 14). [10]

Nothing in the production of the second versions of A Breach and Pestilence suggests that they were not done the same week or month as the first. Both were developed from tracings of the first versions. The tracings can be inferred from the fact that the sizes of the figures and the relations among them are the same in the two versions, despite slight differences in paper size. [11] The Bristol version of Pestilence even repeats exactly the anatomically incorrect positioning of the back pallbearer's foot beneath the woman. Such similitude is neither accidental nor the result of redrawing freehand. It results from either graticulating or “calking” the original. The first method requires drawing a grid over the original and redrawing the design on a support similarly squared, keeping the same coordinates between design and grid as in the original. But this method was used to enlarge or reduce copy. The method usually used to transfer outlines onto clean sheets of paper (or copper plates covered with etching ground) was “calking.” A tracing of the original outline is made on transparent paper (or thin post paper) and placed over a clean sheet of paper. Transferrence required either that the verso of the tracing be covered with black or red chalk, or that a thin sheet so treated be inserted between the tracing and new sheet of paper. The outline is then retraced with a stylus and thereby transferred to the new support. An alternative method was to work from the original itself and not from a tracing, by inserting a calking sheet between the original and the new sheet of paper and tracing the original's outline with a stylus.  In this latter method, though, the artist needs to press harder over the outline to transfer lines and thus subjects the original to possible defacement. When it is used, as it was to transfer a few of Blake's designs for Wollstonecraft's Original Stories (e.g., “Oeconomy & Self-denial) to copper plates, the verso of the paper shows the indention of the stylus (see also Butlin 340). Such markings are absent from the second versions of Pestilence and A Breach, though the latter has a few indentions of a stylus on its face (along the eagle, wall, and reclining figures). [12] These indentions are presumably from the pencil or stylus used to calk the outline from the tracing. The pinholes in the top right and left corners of the Ackland Breach support this hypothesis, for tracings were often fastened to the new sheet by pins.

The only marked difference between the two versions of Pestilence is that the faces of two figures were changed from profile to three-quarter view; the same repositioning of heads also differentiates the two versions of A Breach and partly accounts for why this design's first and second versions are paired with those of Pestilence. But three-quarter views are not why the second versions are second. In both designs, Blake appears to have repositioned heads and gazes for dramatic effect and to diversify the pictorial plane. Technically and aesthetically, he did nothing he hadn't done earlier and as well.  Indeed, in The Witch of Endor Raising the Spirit of Samuel (illus. 4; Butlin 144), which Blake signed and dated 1783, the faces alternate between profile and three-quarter, much as they do in the Bristol Pestilence.  Joseph Ordering Simeon to Be Bound (Butlin 156), which Blake exhibited in 1785, also shows a deliberately diverse range of facial positions. This latter work is especially telling, for it is based on a sketch (Butlin 158) in which two of the three-quarter faces are profiles and one of the profiles is three-quarter. The sketch and finished drawing were executed near one another in time, and the changes between them are analogous to those found in the first and second versions of A Breach and Pestilence. Three-quarter views signify neither special accomplishment nor an advanced drawing style, nor do repositioned heads signify years between versions.

The Ackland Breachis, indeed, more “relaxed” and even sketchier than it appears in Butlin's atrocious color reproduction, probably the worst in his magnificent catalogue. The original in Chapel Hill is not muddy, as it is in the reproduction, nor is it as dark and pinkish. [13] The bodies in the killing fields beyond the breached wall, for example, are mere circles and arched lines (illus. 5), but so are those in the Carnegie version. Technically, the Ackland version lies somewhere between a pen and wash and a watercolor drawing; it is monochromatic except for traces of pink in the old man's robe, the dead woman's wrap, the arm of the soldier at the far left, and yellowish-brown hair in the three right figures. It is more relaxed and less advanced than the Tiriel drawings and even the illustrations of Joseph (Butlin 155-57), and certainly less sophisticatedly painted or “accomplished” than color-print drawings and the illustrations to Night Thoughts and Gray's “Poems,” with which its c. 1795-1800 date associates it. Indeed, its coloring is less sophisticated than that of the large-paper copies of illuminated books or Songs copies I, J, L, N, and O, all of which were produced and colored c. 1794-95—before the illustrations to the Night Thoughts and Gray's “Poems.”  [14] Because many of the large-paper copies of illuminated books and copies of Songs had been misdated post-1800, Blake's development as a colorist seemed erratic and his work as a painter and printmaker appeared disconnected. Hence, his period styles seemed either indeterminate or inconsistent. When these copies of illuminated books are perceived as the work of the mid-1790s, however, they reveal that Blake's coloring style for drawings and relief prints was consistent. They also reveal that the Ackland Breach was executed in an earlier period, more in the style of works like The Witch of Endor (illus. 4) and The Spirit of a Just Man Newly Departed Appearing to His Mourning Family (Butlin 135), works executed by the mid-1780s.

The second versions of both A Breach and Pestilence are tied technically to the first versions and resemble them stylistically. There are no good reasons to believe that they were executed five to 10 years after the first. What would have motivated Blake to return to these works at that time? Why work from a tracing instead of freehand, which provides far greater freedom to rethink the design, as evinced in the third versions of both Pestilence and A Breach? More importantly, why would he duplicate the minimalist coloring in or after 1795, when he employed an enriched palette and coloring style in his other works? Returning years later to an earlier style of execution seems implausable; conversely, the similarity in style suggests that Blake returned to the works while they were still fresh in mind. The aesthetic quality of the first version of A Breach may have provided the motivation to revise the composition. The incompletely colored robe in the Carnegie Breach suggests that Blake stopped before finishing, presumably having already decided to redraw it instead of erasing lines and figures. This decision probably influenced the one to redraw Pestilence as well, creating the second pair. As noted, Blunt and Robertson believe that the Ackland Breach is 1784, while Cummings and Rosenblum believe that the Carnegie version is 1784.  All four were probably correct.

Why then does Butlin date these work so late? The idea that they are too advanced or accomplished for mid-1780s seems predicated on their size and their having figures with three-quarter views, as though such gazes are technically and psychologically more complex and advanced.  These reasons, however, are secondary in Butlin’s overall argument, which is actually anchored by a solid hypothesis misapplied: that the forms of Blake's signature are dateable. Of the Ackland Breach, he states: “its style, size and form of signature show it to be a companion to the version of Pestilence at Bristol and to date probably from the later 1790s” (193). The Ackland and Bristol drawings are signed “W Blake inv & d” and “Wblake inv d” respectively. [15]  Moreover, they are the only drawings in which “inv” and “d” were combined, which suggests a deliberate pairing. [16]   They are dated c. 1795-1800 because their signatures supposedly resemble the monogram that Blake began using almost exclusively in watercolor drawings and prints between 1795 and 1805.  The questions to ask of both works, then, are these: are the signatures really like the monogram? Were the works signed when produced, or were they signed afterward?

Blake's monogram was formed by a stylized italic W and B. The top and bottom loops of the B were formed by round strokes. The swash tail circles over both initials to connect to the left serif of the W, and “inv” was placed inside the loop (illus. 6). [17]  Starting with the serif on the W, the two initials were written in one continuous gesture of up and down strokes, with the tips of the W’s right leg and the B's stem connected. In the signature of the Ackland version, the B of “Battle” and “Blake” were formed alike but different from the monogram's B; the top loop is much smaller than the bottom and is formed by a downward rather than curved stroke. The same style of B is present in the signature of The Witch of Endor (illus. 4b), dated by Blake 1783, and throughout The Island of the Moon c. 1784 manuscript (illus. 7; see “Beneath” in line 3). [18]  Furthermore, the Ackland’s W differs from the monogram in that it has no left upward serif and is separate from the B. The form of just one part the Ackland signature resembles the monogram, and then only superficially and inadvertently. The stem of the “d” loops over the “inv &” (illus. 8), creating a monogram-like feature, which in fact supports a 1780s date—or at least does not rule it out—because it is simply the style that Blake used to write his “d”s at this time, as is evinced by nearly all the “d”s is An Island in the Moon. Note that “wind” and “mind” create similar monogram-like forms (illus. 7, lines 1 and 6). [19]

The resemblance to the monogram was formed inadvertently, by an ornamental flourish characteristic of Blake’s calligraphic hand.  But the situation may be more complicated than that, because the loop may have been extended after the fact, as is suggested by the break in the line just above the “v” of “inv” and to the left of the dot for the “i” (illus. 8).  Moreover, the ink of the indistinct ampersand and “d’ is a lighter hue, and the flag-like serif of “v” crosses instead of extend the right leg of the “v” and crosses the stem of “d,” raising the possibility that all three forms, and not just the extension of the “d”’s loop, were added later.  While the similarity of the strokes of the letters and their extensions argues against this, the possibility cannot be ruled out entirely, because Blake did alter the inscription, changing four lower-case letters to capitals.  Initially, “A,” “Breach,” “A,” and “City” were not capitalized (illus. 8).  If they were capitalized after 1784, then the original inscription was closer to the 1784 Royal Academy catalogue entry (#400): “A breach in a city, the morning after a battle W. Blake” (Bentley, Blake Records 28).  Whether these changes were made the following day or years later may be impossible to tell, but the inscription and signature are clearly in the same ink and made by the same pen or brush, and their letter forms are perfectly consistent with those used in the 1780s and differ considerably from the signature Blake designed c. 1795.

The Ackland version appears to have been signed when produced, though parts of the inscription and possibly a part of the signature may have been altered afterwards.  The Bristol version of Pestilence, however, appears to have been signed after it was produced.  The ink of the signature is darker and the letter strokes wider than those of the inscription (“Pestilence”) and the design itself. [20]  The letter forms of this signature (illus. 9) are closer to those in the monogram than are those in the Ackland version, but they still vary.  The W lacks its upward left serif but connects with the B.  The “d”’s stem is not as extended, and the “inv” is formed very differently from that of the Ackland version and monogram (illus. 6). The “v” has a long winding serif like the one in the Ackland signature and, though illus. 4 does not show it, like the one in The Witch of Endor, but the “n” is misshapened or redrawn.  The feature of the Pestilence signature that most resembles the monogram is the B’s swash tail, but this feature also makes the signature unique. [21]  It is the only signature in which the surname begins with a monogram-styled B; elsewhere, this style of B was used only for the initial.  The assumption seems reasonable, then, that the form Blake either develops into the monogram or was influenced by it.  In either case, it seems that Blake signed the work after it was produced, deliberately to match the form and text of the signature of its companion.

Because Blake sometimes signed and dated works years after they were produced, the possibility that the Ackland alterations and the Bristol signature itself occurred long after production cannot be ruled out. [22]  Dating these works by the form of their signatures must remain suspect—especially when the signatures’ texts are excluded from the dating rationale.  As Butlin has demonstrated, the signatures with Blake’s surname, “WBlake 1795” and Fresco W Blake inv” (Butlin 292, 303, 321; 295, 299, 307, 317, 326), are on color prints possibly pulled in 1795 but probably added after 1805 (Butlin, “Physicality” 8-9).  These two forms of signatures are dated after 1805 precisely because they are inconsistent with the monogram in form and text, and because they appear to be variants of “WBlake inv,” which Blake began to use after 1805 (Butlin, “Physicality” 8).  By the same logic, the texts of the Ackland and Bristol signatures, “W Blake inv & d” and “WBlake inv d,” place the works either before 1795 or after 1805, as does the placement of “inv” beside the surname instead of above Blake’s initials.  The third version of A Breach is dated by Blake 1805 and is clearly in a later drawing and coloring style (illus. 3).  A pre-1795 date is left, but this terminal date can be pushed further back.

The watercolors Los and Orc and God Judging Adam, dated c. 1792-93 and 1790-93 respectively (Butlin 255, 258), are both signed “W Blake,” without “inv & d.”  These, the only signed watercolors between c. 1790 and 1795, are also among the very few watercolors Blake appears to have produced during this period, which was dominated by illuminated printing and commercial engravings—and even these may be earlier than supposed.  Like House of Death, they are dated relative to The God and Bad Angels, which, as noted, is possibly as early as 1790 and not as late as 1794.  In any event, their “W Blake” resembles Blake’s signature on the illuminated books from 1788 to 1795: “The Author & Printer W [or Will] Blake,” as well as his signature in the 1780s.  The terminal date, then, for the signature on the Ackland Breach appears no later than 1790, but this earlier date need not be accepted by process of elimination.  It is actually suggested by the inclusion and placement of “inv” in The Witch of Endor, signed “1783 W Blake inv” (illus. 4b).  As noted, this work’s lower right corner is slightly damaged, and its right margin appears to have been trimmed after “inv,” through the “v”’s long serif (see n18).  A brush or pen mark from the edge of the sheet curves over the “v” of “inv,” possibly a fragment of a looping “d” trimmed off, in which case the signature may have originally read “1783 W Blake inv [&] d,” like the Ackland and Bristol works (see n16 for a work similarly trimmed).

For the Ackland Breach to have been signed when executed and the Bristol Pestilence signed afterwards would not be so strange, for it is not the signatures that make them companions.  Indeed, the last version of Breach is signed and dated, but its companion, the Boston version of Pestilence is neither signed nor dated.  Moreover, Blake consistently signed finished drawings after 1795 and in forms consistent enough to discern dateable patterns, but not before.  Of the 140 known drawings and sketches produced in the 1770s and 1780s (Butlin 49-190), only eight—including the Ackland Breach and Bristol Pestilence—are signed.  Of these, Moses with the Tables of Stone is untraced but is reported to have been signed “W Blake 1774 [?]” and “WB [in monogram] 1774” (Butlin 49). [23]  The presence of a signature on another is dubious (Butlin 184), and the signatures on three appear to me as possibly in a hand other than Blake’s (Butlin 119, 126, 179A). [24]  But two of the latter, Saul and David, c. 1780-85, and A Medieval Battle Scene, c. 1780, are signed “W Blake inven”; if these are Blake’s signatures, then the likelihood that A Breach and Pestilence were signed mid-1780s is further strengthened.  While admittedly there are too few signed works from the 1770s and 1780s to indicate conclusively the evolution of Blake’s signature during this 20-year period, it is clear that the texts resemble one another, that all eight are variations on “W Blake inv,” and that the “d” is more likely to have been included in the signature during this period than the period in which the surname is dropped altogether and “inv” is newly positioned. In fact, no drawings signed during the period in which the monogram was regularly used (1795-1805) include both “inv” and “d” or have “inv” beside the B.  It seems very unlikely, then, that Blake signed these works while using the true monogram (see n16).

We can only speculate why Blake signed some works and not others, or some long after production.  Probably, as Butlin suggests, sales prompted signatures (“Physicality” 8).  The earliest provenances of the Ackland Breach and the Bristol Pestilence are unknown, and so the idea that the latter’s signature and its presumably deliberate echoing of the Ackland's were instigated by sale of the two as a pair cannot be proven or disproven.

While the form of the signature has been misread to indicate a c. 1795-1800 date, the very presence of an inscription on A Breach, a clearer indicator of date, has been given little attention. The few works whose titles are inscribed on the picture surface itself are all from the 1780s. [25] These include Samuel Presenting Saul to the People c. 1780-85, inscribed “Behold your King,” The Spirit of a Just Man Newly Departed Appearing to His Mourning Family c. 1780-85, so inscribed, The Witch of Endor Raising the Spirit of Samuel, 1783, so inscribed, The King of Babylon in Hell c. 1780-85, inscribed “Hell beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming.—Isaiah,” Pestilence, Probably the Great Plague of London c. 1780 (illus. 10), inscribed “Lord have m^er on us,” and both versions of Pestilence (illus. 13, 14), so inscribed (Butlin 117, 135, 144, 145, 184, 190, 192). Works finished after 1790, including the Wollstonecraft designs, the color-print drawings, and the designs in the Small Book of Designs copy B, have inscriptions written below rather than on the design. [26]

Severing the Ackland Breach from its c. 1795-1800 date forces us to reconsider the opinions of those who believe that the exhibited version is not lost. Their position is supported rather than refuted by the Ackland's signature, which is textually closer to the signatures of the 1780s than to those in the 1790s. The visual similarity between it and the c. 1795 monogram is based on the looping stem of the “d,” an ornamental flourish characteristic of Blake's hand in the 1780s. The differences between the signature and monogram are more substantial and troubling. If the Ackland version of A Breach was executed in 1795 or later, then it is not only a return to an earlier style of drawing and coloring, but it is also the only known pen and wash or watercolor c. 1795-1800 inscribed on the design's surface, and, with the partial exception of Pestilence, probably the only one signed with “inv” beside the surname and W and B unconnected.  Rather than suppose that Blake returned haphazardly to a signing style abandoned years earlier, it seems more reasonable to assume that he signed the Ackland version at the time of production, c. 1784. It is also reasonable to assume that the work exhibited was inscribed, for the title in the exhibition catalogue quotes nearly verbatim that inscription rather than referring to the work by subject—say War, or simply A Breach in a City Wall.  Why “the morning after the battle”? Nothing in the Ackland version suggests morning or, for that matter, twilight; there is no rose or yellow in the sky. In other words, the drawing is not titled generically or by subject, as were the Joseph watercolors exhibited in 1785 (e.g., “Joseph making himself known to his brethren,” cat. no. 449; see Bentley Blake Records 30). If the exhibited version was inscribed but is now lost, then why would the Carnegie, the subsequent version, have compositional errors but no inscription, while the Ackland, the next version, corrects these errors but has the inscription? It makes little sense to assume that the Carnegie version was modeled on an earlier version but included drawing errors and excluded its title, or that the Ackland version was executed 10 or more years later only to return to the original model's title, despite the title's absence in the supposed intermediate (Carnegie) version.