William Blake

Jane Hinwood <jhinwood [at] hotmail__com> writes

>I am interested in doing a literature search of William Blake's
>water colour palette and/or the papers he used.  Can any one provide
>details of known references to published conservation research on
watercolours or papers used by Blake.

I can assist you in many ways. I am the Mellon Fellow in Advanced
Paper Conservation at The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
and as part of my fellowship I have been carrying out Blake research.
For the last 18 months I have been examining tempera and watercolour
works worldwide.  To my knowledge only one paper has be published on
the watercolour palette: Maheux A. F. "An Analysis of the Watercolour
Technique and Materials of William Blake" Conference of Art
Conservation Training Programs, May 1982, Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario. A briefer version appears in The Blake Quarterly.
The Tate have just published some info on the temper paintings which
relates to the pallet "Paint and Purpose a Study of Technique in
British Art". A most excellent  generalized Blake bibliography can be
found at The William Blake archive
<URL:http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/blake/>

With regard to the papers the catalogue written by Martin Butlin
"The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake"; Yale University;
1981, has some info but (with only a few deviations) Blake really
only used Whatman papers. If you require any further assistance
please don't hesitate to contact me--Mr. Blake is currently my life!

Rebecca Donnan

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 13:1
                 Distributed: Wednesday, June 16, 1999
                        Message Id: cdl-13-1-001
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