The Pastorals of Virgil, Eclogue I: The Shepherd Chases away a Wolf (1821): Art, History and Details

The Pastorals of Virgil, Eclogue I: The Shepherd Chases away a Wolf (1821) 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:

William Blake conceived and engraved 17 designs for Dr. Robert John Thornton’s The Pastorals of Virgil, a popular schoolbook used in teaching Latin. The publication included translations of poems by ancient Roman author Virgil that focus on a rural setting as both a subject matter and as the background for discussions of various issues, from love to politics. Blake’s illustrations reveal his emphasis on the natural world. As his only wood engravings, they also show how the process entails cutting away from the woodblock to create lighter sections, in essence working in white over a black background. Here, several areas—such as the textures of the trees—emphasize that point.

Object facts

• Title: The Pastorals of Virgil, Eclogue I: The Shepherd Chases away a Wolf
• Date: 1821
• Creator attribution: William Blake (British, 1757–1827)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: wood engraving
• Dimensions: Image: 3.5 x 7.4 cm (1 3/8 x 2 15/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Woodcut
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1934.146

Collection credit

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry. "Recent Accessions to the Department of Prints." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 21, no. 10 (December 1934): 158-161.

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.