John Martin, Adam and Eve await the angel Michael

Adam and Eve await the angel Michael, 1826

John Martin (1789 - 1854)

RA Collection: Art

This plate illustrates a passage beginning on book 11, line 226 of the poem, in which Adam sees the angel Michael approaching: 'I descry / From yonder blazing cloud that veils the hill / One of the heavenly host'.

John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, which narrated the Creation and Fall of Adam and Eve, and spanned Heaven, Hell and Paradise, was a suitably epic undertaking to inspire some of John Martin's most important prints. In around 1824 the young publisher Septimus Prowett commissioned Martin to produce a series of mezzotint illustrations to Paradise Lost, for which he was paid the enormous sum of 2,000 guineas.

The prints were first published by subscription, in twelve monthly parts each containing two mezzotints and a section of text which could eventually be bound together to create a complete illustrated volume. The final parts appeared in 1827 (hence the publication dates on the prints, which range from 1825 to 1827).

The impressions in the RA are used to illustrate a later 1846 edition published by Charles Whittingham, meaning that either new impressions were printed from the plates, or earlier impressions were bought up and bound in with the text.

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Object details

Title
Adam and Eve await the angel Michael
Artist/printmaker
John Martin (1789 - 1854)
Published by
Septimus Prowett (before 1820 - 1867)
Date
1826
Object type
Plate
Place of Publication
London
Medium
Mezzotint
Dimensions

151 mm x 193 mm

Collection
Royal Academy of Arts
Object number
18/2647
This image is from a book

The paradise lost of John Milton ; with 24 illustrations by John Martin - London: 1846

Click here to view the book

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