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An Announcement
It is not always remembered that the impression of the Laocoön belonging to Sir Geoffrey Keynes is not unique, but that another one is recorded in Separate Plates. According to Keynes it was last recorded at the George C. Smith sale in 1938 where it was bought by Sessler. In the process of preparing with Deirdre Toomey an edition of The Complete Engravings of William Blake for the publishers Thames and Hudson I set about tracking down the unique Death’s Door engraving, the only one for Blair’s Grave engraved by Blake not Schiavonetti, which had also not been seen since the 1930s. Thanks to a clue given me by Sir Geoffrey Keynes I eventually located it in a the collection of Mrs. Charles T. Rosenbloom. To my surprise the owner also sent me a photgraph of the second Laocoön impression, which I reproduce here. I have not yet been able to see the print itself, but from the photograph there are a number of potentially interesting differences. First of all it seems not to have been seriously damaged as Keynes suggests, and it seems to be an earlier impression than the Keynes example, because there are still traces of work which has been cleaned off the latter. The decorative flourish at the right, following[e] “What we call Antique Gems,” was once balanced by a similar one on the left, and engraved lines running from the left hand upper corner and the lower left corner appear to be traces of an earlier format. Most tantalizing of all, however, are the unmistakable traces of erased lettering all down the left hand side. They are not readable in the photograph, but there is some hope that close inspection of the original will bring them out. What remains to be seen is whether these traces will yield some additional epigrams.
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