Tempera on iron
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>
Agony in Garden
Presented by the executors of W. Graham Robertson through the Art Fund 1949
actions: expressive
actions: postures and motions
actions: processes and functions
adults
Agony in the Garden
angel
Apostle
architecture
arm / arms raised
Bible: New Testament
Christ
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
comforting
countries and continents
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
flying
garden
garden structures
Israel
Jerusalem - non-specific
Jerusalem, Garden of Gethsemane
kneeling
landscape
Luke, chapter 22
man
mythical, religious, fictional
night
Passion
people
places
religion and belief
sleeping
suffering
supporting
times of the day
tree
universal religious imagery
wooded
<p>One of Blake’s patrons described him as ‘a most fervent admirer of the Bible’. Here, Blake illustrates a scene from the Gospel of St Luke. While Christ prays in the Garden of Gethsemane (before being betrayed by Judas and arrested), an angel comes to give him strength. Blake depicts this moment of Jesus’s spiritual agony, as his disciples sleep around him. This painting is one of a group of biblical subjects Blake made for his patron Thomas Butts. He used an experimental tempera formula that was very unstable, resulting in surface cracking and darkening over time.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2023</em></p>
painting tempera iron
8 July 2002 – 1 October 2003
2003-10-01
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-07-08
William Blake Body and Soul
Collection based display
8 July 2002 – 16 March 2003
2003-03-16
8 July 2002 – 16 March 2003
2003-03-16
2002-07-08
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-07-08
Body and Soul
Collection based display
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
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
17 April 2023 – 12 May 2024
2024-05-12
17 April 2023 – 12 May 2024
2024-05-12
2023-04-17
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2023-04-17
Blake
Collection based display
The Agony in the Garden
support: 270 × 380 mm
frame: 376 × 488 × 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
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<p>One of Blake’s patrons described him as ‘a most fervent admirer of the Bible’. Here, Blake illustrates a scene from the Gospel of St Luke. While Christ prays in the Garden of Gethsemane (before being betrayed by Judas and arrested), an angel comes to give him strength. Blake depicts this moment of Jesus’s spiritual agony, as his disciples sleep around him. This painting is one of a group of biblical subjects Blake made for his patron Thomas Butts. He used an experimental tempera formula that was very unstable, resulting in surface cracking and darkening over time. </p>
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2023-10-26T00:00:00
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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-the-agony-in-the-garden-n05894" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05894</span></a> <b>The Agony in the Garden</b> <i>c.</i> 1799–1800
<br/></p>
<p>N 05894 / B 425
<br/>Tempera on iron 270×380 (10 5/8×15), 3 ( 1/8) cut off diagonally at each corner
<br/>Signed ‘WB inv’ in monogram, damaged, b.r.
<br/>Presented by the Executors of W. Graham Robertson through the National Art-Collections Fund 1949
<br/>PROVENANCE Thomas Butts; Thomas Butts jun.; Capt. F.J. Butts, offered Sotheby's 24 June 1903 (14) £28 bt in Dimsdale; his widow, sold April 1906 through Carfax to W. Graham Robertson, offered Christie's 22 July 1949 (30, repr.) £420 bt his executors
<br/>EXHIBITED Carfax 1904 (11); Carfax 1906 (3); Arts Council 1951 (30, pl.9); Tate Gallery 1978 (139, repr.)
<br/>LITERATURE Rossetti 1863, p.227 no.153, and 1880, p.240 no.177; Preston 1952, p.59, no.12 pl. 12; Keynes <i>Bible</i>
1957, pp. xiii, 38 no.134 repr. and colour pl. vii; Blunt 1959, p.67; Kremen 1972, pp.154, 253 n.128, pl.10; Bindman 1977, p.124; Paley 1978, p.55; Butlin 1981, pp.332–3 no.425, colour pl.509
<br/></p>
<p>This is an illustration to Luke, xxii, 41–4. Blake seems to suggest the detail of Christ's sweat ‘as it were red drops of blood falling down to the ground’.
<br/>
<br/>The picture was restored in 1917 (repr. before and after, <i>Burlington Magazine</i>, XXXII, 1918, p.17) and again in 1949. The original paint is missing in many places. William Rossetti lists this work, under the title ‘Christ in the Garden, sustained by an Angel’, as an ‘Oil picture (?) on copper’. Blake was, of course, averse to the use of oil paint and seems never to have used it.
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<br/>Although most of Blake's <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> <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>paintings</span></a> on metal seem to be on copper recent analysis by Brian Gilmore of the New Armouries at the Tower of London has shown that the support in this case is iron, almost certainly coated with a form of tin. On the painted side, underlying Blake's usual white ground, there is a layer of red paint, probably red lead. This suggests that Blake used a piece of metal already used in some completely unrelated artefact.</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin, <i>William Blake 1757-1827</i>, Tate Gallery Collections, V, London 1990
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-08T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: expressive actions: postures and motions actions: processes and functions adults Agony in the Garden angel Apostle architecture arm / arms raised Bible: New Testament Christ cities, towns, villages (non-UK) comforting countries and continents emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas flying garden garden structures Israel Jerusalem, Garden of Gethsemane Jerusalem - non-specific kneeling landscape Luke, chapter 22 man mythical, religious, fictional night Passion people places religion and belief sleeping suffering supporting times of the day tree universal religious imagery wooded