Samuel Palmer




The Bellman (1879).

Etching, 6 1/2" x 9 1/4", final state.

Inscribed "F.S.-M.H.-F.L.G." (i.e., F.Short-M.Hardie-F.L.Griggs)

Samuel Palmer (1805-1881) was an English artist with a visionary style. His early work was highly original.
While his middle period was more conventional, his late etchings reached his earlier levels of inspiration.
The Bellman is one of Palmer's last etchings. He went through six states to reach this rich, dense result.
The title refers to lines from the poem "Il Penseroso" by John Milton:

Or the Belman's drousie charm,
To bless the dores from nightly harm


This impression (and the one below) was printed posthumously in 1924 by Frederick Griggs, Frank Short and
Martin Hardie for the great Palmer retrospective at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Griggs was a true master printer, and these posthumous impressions are arguably finer than the signed
lifetime impressions of this plate.




The Early Ploughman (1861).

Etching, 4 5/8" x 7 1/2", final state.

Inscribed "F.S.-M.H.-F.L.G."


The Lonely Tower (1879).

Etching on Japan, signed in pencil.
6 1/2" x 9 1/4", sheet 11 1/2" x 14"
Lister E12, vi of vii, 75 impressions

The title again refers to lines from the poem "Il Penseroso" by John Milton:

Or let my light at midnight hour
Be seen in some high lonely tow'r
Where I may oft out-watch the bear
With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold
What worlds or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind, that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook.


We may note that the "bear" is the constellation Ursa Major, part of which is the familar Big Dipper, which can be seen directly behind the tower. To "out-watch the bear" would imply watching until it disappears. But since Ursa Major is a circumpolar constellation (at least in England), it never sets; it will only disappear with the approach of dawn. And indeed the left-leaning crescent shows that this is the waning moon just before sunrise. A lot of threads are woven into this complex etching. In the poen "The Phases of the Moon", W. B. Yeats wrote

Far from the tower where Milton's Platonist sat late ...
The lonely light that Samuel Palmer engraved
An image of mysterious wisdom won by toil