Watercolour and graphite on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
after <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 in Carpenters Shop Humility Saviour
Bequeathed by Miss Alice G.E. Carthew 1940
abstract concepts
actions: postures and motions
actions: processes and functions
adults
bending forward
Bible: New Testament
boy
carpenter
children
Christ
dividers
furnishings
halo
industrial and crafts
interiors
looking / watching
Luke, chapter 2
male
man
nudes
objects
people
rational knowledge - dividers and set square
religion and belief
Saints
saw
scientific and measuring
set square
St Joseph
symbols and personifications
tools and machinery
universal religious imagery
Virgin Mary
woman
work and occupations
workbench
workshop
workspaces
paper unique watercolour graphite
1 November 2011 – 21 October 2012
2012-10-21
3 July 2012 – 21 October 2012
2012-10-21
2012-07-03
Fundació “la Caixa” (Madrid, Spain)
2011-11-01
Blake Exhibition
Loan-out
15 November 2021 – 10 April 2022
2022-04-10
15 November 2021 – 10 April 2022
2022-04-10
2021-11-15
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2021-11-15
Poetical Bodies: Works on Paper by Blake and his Contemporaries
Collection based display
Christ in the Carpenter’s Shop: The Humility of the Saviour
support: 330 × 349 mm
Bequeathed by Miss Alice G.E. Carthew 1940
<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-in-the-carpenters-shop-the-humility-of-the-saviour-n05193" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05193</span></a> <b>Christ in the Carpenter's Shop: The Humility of the Saviour</b>
<br/></p>
<p>N 05193/-
<br/>Pencil and watercolour 330×335 (13×13 1/2) on paper 485×355 (19 1/2×14)
<br/>Bequeathed by Miss Alice G.E. Carthew 1940
<br/>PROVENANCE ?Carfax and Co. by 1906; Miss Carthew, ?after 1914
<br/>EXHIBITED ?Carfax 1906 (41); ? Manchester (23), Nottingham (16) and Edinburgh (10) 1914
<br/>LITERATURE Gage in <i>Warburg Journal</i>, XXXIV, 1971, p.376; Butlin 1981, pp.352–3 under no.474
<br/></p>
<p>This is a late 19th- or early 20th-century copy after 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> painted for Thomas Butts and now in the Walsall Museum and Art Gallery (Garman-Ryan Collection), Staffordshire (Butlin 1981, no.474, pl.558). The matt of the original bears, in the copperplate hand, the title ‘The Humility of the Saviour’, a reference to ‘Luke ch: 2<sup>nd</sup>
v.51<sup>st</sup>’ and the text from Luke, ii, 51. The text in fact merely states ‘And He [Christ] went down with them [his parents], and came to Nazareth...’ without mentioning the later legend of the Carpenter's Shop.
<br/>
<br/>Blake shows Christ with a set-square and compasses, symbols of rational knowledge, instead of the traditional carpenter's tools. The compasses or dividers link this watercolour with the symbolism of the frontispiece to <i>Europe</i>, the famous ‘Ancient of Days’ (repr. Erdman <i>Illuminated Blake</i> 1974, p.156) and the ‘Newton’ colour <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/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>print</span></a> (<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-newton-n05058" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05058</span></a>, <i>q.v.</i>). Although such symbolism usually has a negative connotation in Blake's works, Blunt suggests that in this case the interpretation could be a positive one, the dividers now representing the synthesis of reason with the imagination under the new dispensation of Christ. However Gage more convincingly stresses their divisive function, pointing to a passage in <i>The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, c.</i> 1790–93, where Blake writes that ‘Jesus Christ did not wish to unite but to seperate [sic] them’ - the Prolific and Devouring aspects of Man (Keynes <i>Writings</i>
1957, p.155; the imagery recurs earlier in the same book when Blake states that ‘in Milton... the Son [is] a Ratio of the five senses’, Keynes <i>op. cit.</i>, p.150). The design can also be compared with one of the illustrations to Young's <i>Night Thoughts</i> 1796–7 (Butlin no.330 <i>360</i>, repr. Erdman <i>Night Thoughts</i> 1980). This shows Reason instructing Youth and again includes a geometrical design being set out with the aid of compasses.</p>
<p>
<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
2004-10-07T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
abstract concepts actions: postures and motions actions: processes and functions adults bending forward Bible: New Testament boy carpenter children Christ dividers furnishings halo industrial and crafts interiors looking / watching Luke, chapter 2 male man nudes objects people rational knowledge - dividers and set square religion and belief Saints saw scientific and measuring set square St Joseph symbols and personifications tools and machinery universal religious imagery Virgin Mary woman work and occupations workbench workshop workspaces