Ink and watercolour on paper
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>
Entombment
Presented by the executors of W. Graham Robertson through the Art Fund 1949
actions: expressive
actions: postures and motions
adults
arch
architecture
Bible: New Testament
birth to death
burial
candle
Christ
cloak
clothing and personal items
door
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
Entombment
features
grief
group
groups
heating and lighting
interiors
jar
Luke, chapter 23
lying down
man
Mary of Bethany
mourning
Nicodemus
night
objects
Passion
people
prayer
religion and belief
religious
religious and ceremonial
Saints
shroud
society
St Joseph of Arimathea
St Mary Magdalene
times of the day
tomb
universal religious imagery
veil
vessels and containers
Virgin Mary
weeping
woman
<p>The white card mount for this drawing was made after Blake’s death; the embossed stamp (top left) reads ‘Turnbull’s Crayon Board’, which was not made before 1846. The mount was probably made for descendants of Blake’s patron Thomas Butts. The watercolour is ‘drum-mounted’, that is, glued along its edges to a ‘window’ cut in the board.</p><p>The smudges of gold and black paint on the mount suggest the drawing was later framed with verre églomisé: glass painted with black and gold lines on its inner face. This method, invented by the eighteenth-century French framer J-B Glomy, became popular in the mid-nineteenth century.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
paper unique ink watercolour
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
24 November 2003 – 22 November 2004
2004-11-22
10 November 2003
2003-11-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-11-24
William Blake the Painter at Work
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
29 October 2024 – 30 September 2025
2025-09-30
30 October 2024 – 2 February 2025
2025-02-02
2024-10-30
Reggia di Venaria Reale (Turin, Italy)
1 September 2025 – 31 January 2026
2026-01-31
2025-09-01
Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest, Hungary)
1 March 2026 – 31 August 2026
2026-08-31
2026-03-01
External
2024-10-29
William Blake and the Age of Romantic Fantasy: British Art & Imagination
Loan-out
The Entombment
support: 417 × 310 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
<div class="para3">
<span class="text12">The white card mount for 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/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> </span><span class="text13">was made after Blake’s death; 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/e/embossed" title="Glossary definition for 'Embossed'"><span>embossed</span></a> stamp (top      left) reads </span><span class="text12">‘Turnbull’s Crayon      Board’, which was  not made before 1846. The mount was </span><span class="text14">probably made for descendants of Blake’s</span><span class="text12"> patron Thomas Butts. 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/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a> is      ‘drum-mounted’, that is, glued along its edges to a      ‘window’ cut in the board. </span>
</div>
<div class="para8">
<span class="text12">
<br/> </span>
</div>
<div class="para3">
<span class="text12">The smudges of gold and black paint on the mount      suggest the drawing was later framed with verre églomisé:      glass painted with black and gold lines on its inner face. This method,      invented by the eighteenth-century French framer J-B Glomy, became popular      in the mid-nineteenth century. </span>
</div>

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2004-09-09T00:00:00
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-the-entombment-n05896" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05896</span></a> <b>The Entombment</b> <i>c.</i>1805
<br/>
<br/>N 05896 / B 498
<br/>Pen and watercolour 417×310 (16 7/16×12 3/16)</p>
<p>Signed ‘WB inv’ in monogram b.r. and inscr. on mount ‘Luke ch: 23<sup>rd</sup> v.53<sup>rd</sup>’ b.r. and, in the copperplate hand, with the title ‘Joseph burying Jesus’ above and the text from Luke, xxiii, 53 below
<br/>Presented by the Executors of W. Graham Robertson through the National Art-Collections Fund 1949
<br/>PROVENANCE Thomas Butts; Thomas Butts jun., offered Foster's 29 June 1853 (in 124 with no.47 as ‘Christ in the Sepulchre’) £1.10.0 bt in Thomas, and Foster's 8 March 1854 (in 14 with nos.44 and 47 as ‘Christ in the Sepulchre’) 10/- bt in; Capt. F.J. Butts, offered Sotheby's 24 June 1903 (15) £305 bt in Fowler; his widow, sold April 1906 through Carfax to W. Graham Robertson, offered Christie's 22 July 1949 (35, repr.) £1,102.10.0 bt his executors
<br/>EXHIBITED BFAC 1876 (166); Carfax 1904 (12); Carfax 1906 (65); Cambridge 1910; ?St George's Gallery 1911 (untraced); Tate Gallery (30), Manchester (31), Nottingham (20) and Edinburgh (19) 1913–14; on loan to Tate Gallery 1923–7; BFAC 1927 (25, pl.20); <i>British Art</i>, RA 1934 (773; 709); Whitechapel 1934 (55); <i>British Painting</i>, Paris 1938 (162); Paris, Antwerp (pl.11), Zurich and Tate Gallery 1947 (18); Bournemouth, Southampton and Brighton 1949 (7); Tate Gallery 1978 (179, repr.)
<br/>LITERATURE Rossetti 1863, p.228 no.160, and 1880, p.241 no.184; Preston 1952, pp.64–5 no.15, pl.15; Keynes <i>Bible</i>
1957, p.42 no.144 repr.; Blunt 1959, p.73; Bindman 1977, p.131; Butlin 1981, p.361 no.498, pl.601; Essick in <i>Blake</i>, XVI, 1982–3, p.42, pl.18
<br/></p>
<p>This is an illustration to Luke, xxiii, 53. Blake also illustrates verse 55, the arrival of the three Maries who stand in the archway at the back. The two bearded figures on the left, one kneeling, one standing, are presumably, as Essick points out, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, both described as being present at Christ's tomb in John, xix, 38–39. This latter text seems to be the basis for Blake's earlier treatment of ‘The Entombment’, one of the small <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> done for Thomas Butts <i>c.</i>1799–1800 (Butlin 1981, no.427, pl.516), in which the central figure shown at the entrance to the tomb has been identified both as Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.
<br/>
<br/>This work is one of the series of companion <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolours</span></a> of the theme of the Passion listed under no.47.</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 adults arch architecture Bible: New Testament birth to death burial candle Christ cloak clothing and personal items door emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas Entombment features grief group groups heating and lighting interiors jar Luke, chapter 23 lying down man Mary of Bethany mourning Nicodemus night objects Passion people prayer religion and belief religious religious and ceremonial Saints shroud society St Joseph of Arimathea St Mary Magdalene times of the day tomb universal religious imagery veil vessels and containers Virgin Mary weeping woman