St. Matthew (1799): Art, History and Details

St. Matthew (1799) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is William Blake (British, 1757–1827).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The energy and awe with which the evangelist Saint Matthew responds to the angel presenting the divinely inspired text echoes William Blake’s attitude toward artistic inspiration. From childhood Blake experienced visions that are reflected in the otherworldliness of his work. While Blake was not embraced by the fine art establishment, a small group of patrons believed in his genius and commissioned works in which his unusual visions had free rein.

Object facts

• Title: St. Matthew
• Date: 1799
• Creator attribution: William Blake (British, 1757–1827)
• Culture: England
• Type: Painting
• Technique: tempera on canvas
• Dimensions: Overall: 38.5 x 26.5 cm (15 3/16 x 10 7/16 in.)
• Collection: P - British before 1800
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2017.4

A detail from the museum

Like St. Matthew, William Blake reported having visions of angels throughout his life.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Butlin, Martin. The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981. vol. 1, p. 323.
• Gilchrist, Alexander, Anne Gilchrist, W. J. Linton, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, Charles Edwin West, and Charles Henry Jeens. Life of William Blake, "Pictor Ignotus": With Selections from His Poems and Other Writings. London, Cambridge, United Kingdom: Macmillan and Co., 1863.
• Philadelphia Museum of Art. William Blake, 1757-1827; A Descriptive Catalogue of an Exhibition of the Works of William Blake Selected from Collections in the United States. Philadelphia, PA: The Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1939.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.