Blake self-portrait to go on display

A drawing thought to be William Blake’s only self-portrait is to go on show later this yearforthefirsttimeinanexhibition which will also bring his wife out of the shadows.

Some 300 “remarkable and rarely seen works” will be displayed in what is expected to be a blockbuster show at Tate Britain. The more than 200-year-old detailed pencil drawing has only been seen once before, in the US, and never in his home country.

Depicting Blake when he was around 45 years old, it is thought to be the visionary artist and poet’s only self-portrait.

It shows an “isolated and misunderstood figure” who had returned to London from Sussex, where he had been falsely accused of treason.