Edward Calvert. 'The Bride'. 1828, printed in 1904.

Proof print on India paper

Attribution note: From a portfolio: The Early Engravings of Edward Calvert. Eleven proofs on India paper from the original copper plates, wood blocks, and lithographic stones. Published by Messrs. Carfax & Co., Ltd., 1904. (The original lettered inscription on the wood blocks have been removed.) The issue was limited to thirty copies. The two copper engravings and seven wood-engravings were printed from the origuinal plates and blocks, now in the British Museum. Of the two lithographs, the impressions included in this issue were part of a remainder, numbering only thirty-five, of those printed under the artist's own supervision in 1829. (After printing, the stones were cleaned, and in the memoir by Calvert's third son, these subjects were reproduced by means of photo-process blocks.)

Edward Calvert was a one of the principal members of 'The Ancients', a small group of artists (including Samuel Palmer and George Richmond) who became disciples of William Blake in the last years of his life. They each shared with Blake a spiritual and visionary way of working. Calvert became a neo-pagan mystic, and much of his imagery reflects an intense mystical vision of an ideal pastoral world, with scenes inspired by the landscapes around Shoreham in Kent.

This image, The Bride,came from the Biblical Beulah, the name given to Palestine when God restored it to favour, and from John Bunyan's Beulah or Earthly Paradise of The Pilgrim's Progress. Beulah also meant 'married'. The idea of the Soul as the Bride seeking God on the difficult path to salvation lies at the heart of The Bride.

E.507-1926