In this artwork, how is the Versions discussed?
The print exists in four versions from two different matrices. The most elaborate and best-known version of the print is in the Tate Gallery, London, sometimes described as the only finished one. It was presented by W. Graham Robertson to the gallery in 1939, and is catalogued as "Butlin 310".A unique "proof print" is in the British Museum (Butlin 313). It is "significantly smaller than the final version of the design" and depicts the supine figure "partially covered in vegetation" in the form of sweeping fronds of long grass.Another version of the image is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is not as elaborately worked as the Tate print. It was donated by Mrs. Robert W. Goelet in 1958.A lightly retouched version at the Yale Center for British Art also exists, somewhat yellowed by varnish. According to The William Blake Archive, "The characteristics of the color printing indicate that this impression is the first one printed from the larger matrix in 1795. The second impression in this printing is Pity in the Tate Collection (Butlin 310); the third impression is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Butlin 311)."
Yale Center for British Art Tate Tate Gallery Pity British Museum London William Blake Metropolitan Museum of Art