WMR corrects Scott's Blake catalogue

Rossetti corrects W.B. Scott's Blake catalogue.

Rossetti, William M. "The Blake Catalog." Academy (April 15, 1875): 109. Web. 21 Sept. 2011.

Rossetti commends W. Bell Scott for creating a catalogue for Blake's work as Rossetti had in his review of the collection urged. But, he says, it would be the "tribute of rectification" for him now to correct several errors in the catalogue. In a letter to Swinburne, Rossetti states it was Bell-Scott "and his accomplice" that failed to finish the catalogue in time for the exhibition, but that the club secretary said the catalogue would be ready before the exhibit closed (Letters 337). The resulting catalog here discussed was in need of clarification, in Rossetti's opinion, hence this notice.

Rossetti disputes Scott's references to Blake and Swedenborg. He also points out several incorrectly stated dates in Scott's commentary, as well as an error in the signature of Blake's work with "inv" rather than "imv."

W. Bell Scott also apparently had several works cited with titles that disagreed with Rossetti's recording of them at the exhibition.

Rossetti notes that two works share meaning with Blake's A Vision of the Last Judgment, but in an indirect way: "Each of the pictures was found to correspond in certain leading details with the Vision, now one of them more, and now the other; but neither corresponds throughout."

Bell-Scott, it should be noted, was considered to be one of Rossetti's circle of Cheyne Walk associates (Reminiscences 2:327).