Why did William Blake become an apprentice to James Basire?

William Blake became an apprentice to James Basire in 1772 primarily because his family could not afford the high fees required to apprentice him to a fashionable painter or the engraver William Wynne Ryland.1

While Blake initially hoped to study under a painter of the English school, those costs were prohibitive for his family. When his father took him to interview Ryland, the fee was more attainable but still expensive; however, Blake refused the apprenticeship because he instinctively disliked Ryland’s appearance, famously remarking that the man looked as if he would be hanged—a prediction that proved true years later when Ryland was executed for forgery. Consequently, Blake was apprenticed to Basire for a fee of 50 guineas, beginning a seven-year period where he mastered the technical skills of etching and line engraving.1