Tempera on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Art Fund
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/william-blake-39" aria-label="More by William Blake" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">William Blake</a>
Christ Blessing Little Children
Presented by the executors of W. Graham Robertson through the Art Fund 1949
actions: expressive
actions: postures and motions
adults
architecture
Bible: New Testament
blessing
boy
building - non-specific
children
Christ
embracing
girl
group
groups
hill
kneeling
lake
landscape
man
Mark, chapter 10
people
religion and belief
river
townscapes / man-made features
tree
universal religious imagery
water: inland
woman
wooded
<p>This painting is from of a group of fifty illustrations to the Bible commissioned by Blake's patron, Thomas Butts. Its subject is taken from chapter 10 of St Mark's Gospel. Christ, seated beneath a spreading tree, blesses children brought to him while he was preaching. To the left is one of his disciples, who tries to send the children away. Christ tells the disciples: Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God... Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2004</em></p>
painting tempera canvas
1 November 2011 – 21 October 2012
2012-10-21
1 November 2011 – 19 February 2012
2012-02-19
2011-11-01
State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow, Russia)
3 July 2012 – 21 October 2012
2012-10-21
2012-07-03
Fundació “la Caixa” (Madrid, Spain)
2011-11-01
Blake Exhibition
Loan-out
13 May 2013 – 6 October 2013
2013-10-06
13 May 2013 – 6 October 2013
2013-10-06
2013-05-13
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2013-05-13
Landscape in Blake
Collection based display
20 April 2015 – 7 May 2017
2017-05-07
20 April 2015 – 7 May 2017
2017-05-07
2015-04-20
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2015-04-20
William Blake
Collection based display
22 May 2017 – 28 July 2019
2019-07-28
22 May 2017 – 28 July 2019
2019-07-28
2017-05-22
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2017-05-22
William Blake in Focus
Collection based display
11 September 2019 – 2 February 2020
2020-02-02
11 September 2019 – 2 February 2020
2020-02-02
2019-09-11
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2019-09-11
William Blake: The Artist
Exhibition
Christ Blessing the Little Children
support: 276 × 390 × 17 mm
frame: 375 × 490 × 50 mm
Presented by the executors of W. Graham Robertson through the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> 1949
<p>This <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> is from of a group of fifty illustrations  to the Bible commissioned by Blake's patron, Thomas Butts. Its subject is taken from chapter  10 of St Mark's Gospel. Christ, seated beneath  a spreading tree, blesses children brought to him while he was preaching. To the left is one of his disciples, who tries to send the children away. Christ tells the disciples: 
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Suffer the little children to come unto me, and  forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God... Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom  of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.</p>
Display caption
2004-08-31T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-christ-blessing-the-little-children-n05893" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05893</span></a> <b>Christ Blessing the Little Children</b> 1799
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<p>N 05893 / B 419
<br/>Tempera on canvas, relined 260×375 (10 1/4×14 3/4) cut down from approx. 270×390 (10 5/8×15 1/4)
<br/>Signed ‘WB [? ‘inv’, as monogram] 1799’ b.l. Presented by the Executors of W. Graham Robertson through the National Art-Collections Fund 1949
<br/>PROVENANCE Thomas Butts; Thomas Butts jun., sold Foster's 29 June 1853 (? 71, as ‘Christ and Little Children’) 10/- bt Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, Bt. <i>or</i> (?96, as ‘The Church and Christ’) 10/- with lot 97 (‘The Flight into Egypt’, Butlin no.404) bt Golding; the Rev. Samuel Prince, sold Sotheby's 11–14 December 1865, 1st day (in 281 with Butlin no.404) £12.15.0. bt Hayes; Alfred Aspland by 1876, sold Sotheby's 27 January 1885 (93) £16 bt Gray; J. Annan Bryce, sold 1904 to W. Graham Robertson, offered Christie's 22 July 1949 (27) £399 bt his executors
<br/>EXHIBITED BFAC 1876 (139); Carfax 1904 (30); Carfax 1906 (15); Tate Gallery 1913 (24); BFAC 1927 (21, pl. 16); Tate Gallery 1947 (49); Bournemouth, Southampton and Brighton 1949 (33); Arts Council 1951 (25)
<br/>LITERATURE Rossetti 1863, p.226 no.142 and ? p.255 list 3 no.14, and 1880, p.208 no.11 and ? p.275 list 3 no.14; anon., ‘Art Sales’, <i>The Times</i>, 3 February 1885, p.13; Preston 1952, pp.57–8 no.11, pl.11; Keynes <i>Bible</i> 1957, p.34 no.120 repr.; Bindman 1977, pp.123, 127–8; Paley 1978, p.55; Butlin 1981, pp.330–1 no.419, colour pl.507
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<p>This is almost certainly an illustration to Mark, x, 13–16: Christ takes the little children into his arms and blesses them, after refuting his disciples, who had tried to rebuff them, with the words, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God’.
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<br/>There is a problem with the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/provenance" title="Glossary definition for 'Provenance'"><span>provenance</span></a> of this <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a>. Although there was a picture entitled ‘Christ and Little Children’ in the Butts sale at Foster's on 29 June 1853, lot 71, this was bought by Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, Bt., whose collection is not known to have been dispersed until well into the twentieth century. It is possible therefore that the work in the Tate Gallery was lot 96 in the same sale, ‘The Church and Christ’. This was sold to Golding together with the following lot, ‘Flight into Egypt’, which shares the subsequent provenance from Samuel Prince down to W. Graham Robertson (see Butlin 1981, no.404). The names of the owners given by William Rossetti in his 1863 lists are no help in this case. He lists ‘Christ Blessing the Little Children’ merely as ‘From Mr. Butts’ while giving the ‘Flight into Egypt’ to ‘Mr. Strange’, who is otherwise not known to have owned that work; Rossetti subsequently amended this to ‘Aspland’ when he annotated his own copy of Gilchrist's <i>Life</i>, now in the Houghton Library, Harvard University. From this it is clear that Rossetti did not know the Golding or Prince collections though he did, on the basis of Foster's sale of 1853, make a separate entry for ‘Christ and the Church [Mr. Golding, from Mr. Butts.]’ in his list 3 of ‘Works of Unascertained Method’, this list being presumably of works that he had not seen. The subject of ‘Christ Blessing the Little Children’ can indeed by seen as an <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/allegory" title="Glossary definition for 'Allegory'"><span>allegory</span></a> of the Church and Christ, though there is no concrete evidence to support the identification of this <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/t/tempera" title="Glossary definition for 'Tempera'"><span>tempera</span></a> with the title listed by Rossetti. However, there is no evidence to suggest that pictures describable as either ‘Christ Blessing the Little Children’ or ‘The Church and Christ’ were subsequently in the Stirling-Maxwell collection, so the answer may simply be that Sir William resold ‘Christ Blessing the Little Children’ immediately after the 1853 sale and that this is indeed the Tate Gallery picture.
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<br/>William Rossetti, in his 1863 list, remarked of this picture, ‘The surface cracked’. In his revised list of 1880 he added ‘but repaired’ and dated the work 1790. He had already annotated his own copy of the 1863 edition of Gilchrist's <i>Life</i> to this effect some time before 1876. Since the removal at the Tate Gallery in 1952 of the oil paint that seems to have been added during the restoration reported by Rossetti it has become clear that the last figure of the date, though damaged by the trimming of the edge of the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a>, is definitely a ‘9’. It may also be the early damage to this picture that accounts for the fact that what otherwise looks like Blake's usual monogram lacks the letters ‘inv’, his normal abbreviation for ‘invenit’.</p>
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<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin, <i>William Blake 1757-1827</i>, Tate Gallery Collections, V, London 1990
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Catalogue entry
2004-10-08T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: expressive actions: postures and motions adults architecture Bible: New Testament blessing boy building - non-specific children Christ embracing girl group groups hill kneeling lake landscape man Mark, chapter 10 people religion and belief river townscapes / man-made features tree universal religious imagery water: inland woman wooded