Songs of Innocence: Little Boy Lost
[1789] printed ca. 1825
Medium
Relief etching printed in orange-brown ink and hand-colored with watercolor and shell gold
Dimensions
sheet: 6 3/16 x 5 9/16 in. (15.7 x 14.1 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1917
Accession Number
17.10.13
Tags
Art Historical Context
William Blake's *Songs of Innocence: Boy Lost*, created in 1789 and around 1825, is a poignant plate from his groundbreaking illuminated book *Songs of Innocence*. a Romantic visionary poet and artist, Blake explored themes of childhood innocence, spiritual longing, and the human condition amid the Industrial Revolution's upheavals in late 18th-century England This work illustrates the poem "Little Boy," depicting a vulnerable boy wandering amid misty trees, symbolizing lost purity and misguided faith—echoing Blake's critique of rigid authority and organized religion. Blake's innovative relie...
About the Artist
William Blake · 1757–1827
William Blake (1757–1827) stands as one of the most visionary and unconventional artists in British history, a poet-painter-printmaker whose mystical imagination and radical vision profoundly shaped the Romantic movement. Born in London's Soho district, Blake experienced visions from childhood—claiming to see angels in trees at age eight—and these spiritual encounters would guide his art throughou...