Print, ink, watercolour and varnish on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
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 Appearing to Apostles after Resurrection
Bequeathed by W. Graham Robertson 1948
actions: expressive
actions: postures and motions
adults
Apostle
Bible: New Testament
bowing
Christ
disbelief
diseases and conditions
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
group
groups
kneeling
Luke, chapter 24
man
people
prayer
religion and belief
Resurrection
shock
standing
universal religious imagery
wounded
<p>In the final chapter of St Luke’s gospel, two angels announce that Christ has</p><p>risen from the tomb. Later, Christ himself appears to his disciples. As Blake shows here, they are terrified, thinking that they are seeing a ghost.</p><p>Christ tries to reassure them by holding out his hands to show the wounds he received at the crucifixion, and saying ‘Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.’</p><p><em>Gallery label, February 2004</em></p>
paper unique print ink watercolour varnish
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 March 2003 – 17 November 2003
2003-11-17
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-03-24
Blake and Illustration
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)
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
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 Appearing to the Apostles after the Resurrection
support: 406 × 499 mm
frame: 625 × 710 × 50 mm
Bequeathed by W. Graham Robertson 1948
<div class="para1">
<span class="text0">In the final chapter of St Luke’s gospel,  two      angels announce that Christ has  </span>
</div>
<div class="para1">
<span class="text0">risen from the tomb. Later, Christ himself appears to      his disciples. As Blake shows here, they are terrified, thinking that they      are seeing a ghost. </span>
</div>
<div class="para1">
<span class="text0">
<br/> </span>
</div>
<div class="para1">
<span class="text15">Christ tries to reassure them by holding out his hands      to show the wounds he received  </span><span class="text14">at the      crucifixion, and saying ‘Behold my </span><span class="text15">hands      and my feet, that it is I myself: handle</span><span class="text0"> me,      and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me      have.’
<br/> </span>
</div>

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2004-02-10T00:00:00
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-appearing-to-the-apostles-after-the-resurrection-n05875" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05875</span></a> <b>Christ Appearing to the Apostles after the Resurrection</b>
<i>c</i>. 1795
<br/>
<br/>N 05875 / B 327</p>
<p>Colour print finished in ink and watercolour, varnished and trimmed 406×499 (16×19 5/8) Bequeathed by W. Graham Robertson 1948
<br/>PROVENANCE ? Mrs Blake; ? Frederick Tatham;? Joseph Hogarth, sold Southgate's 7–30 June 1854, 17th evening (7112 as ‘Our Saviour appearing to His Disciples, in colours’) 8/- bt M. Sharp; ...; J.W. Pease, bequeathed 1901 to Miss S.H. Pease, sold Christie's 2 December 1938 (57) £75 bt. Martin for W. Graham Robertson
<br/>LITERATURE Rossetti 1903, pp.16–17; Preston 1952, pp.39–40 no.5, pl.5; Preston <i>Letters from W.G.R.</i> 1953, pp.400, 405–6, 424; Keynes <i>Bible</i> 1957, p.46 no.151a repr.; Kostelanetz in Rosenfeld 1969, pp.129–30; Keynes <i>Blake Studies</i> 1971, p.156; Helmstadter in <i>Blake Studies</i>, V, 1972–3, p.132; Mellor 1974, p.163; Bindman 1977, p.100; Paley 1978., p.37; Essick <i>Printmaker</i> 1980, p.134, pl.128; La Belle in <i>Blake</i>, XIV, 1980–1, p.81; Lindberg in <i>Blake</i>, XIV, 1980–1, pp.167, 173 n.48; Butlin 1981, pp.176–7 no.327, pl.418
<br/></p>
<p>Unlike other <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>prints</span></a> from this series in the Tate Gallery this example is not that from the Butts collection, which was mentioned in the Butts accounts of 3 March 1806 apparently as having been delivered on 7 September 1805. This had passed to J.C. Strange by 1863 and is now in the Yale University Art Gallery (Butlin 1981 no.325, colour pl.401). There is a third version of the design in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Butlin no.326, pl.417). The Tate Gallery copy is one of five designs from this series that were in the collection of J.W. Pease when he died in 1901, some or all of which were part of a larger, if not complete, set from the Tatham collection. All the Pease prints, together with one or two further examples traceable back to Tatham, have been varnished, either by Blake himself or subsequently, causing the prints to become much darker and more obscure. In addition the Tate's ‘Christ Appearing to the Apostles after the Resurrection’ has been trimmed and the lower corners made up. The Tate Gallery's pull, which bears relatively little colour printing and is hardly finished at all in pen and <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>, seems to be the last, with the Washington one first and the Yale Center one second. All seem to date from about 1795 although the Yale Center version was probably finished in pen and watercolour shortly before being delivered to Butts in 1805; it bears the ‘WB inv’ monogram common to other works of this date though only traces, if that, of a date, and it is also mounted on fine linen as were formerly the Butts prints at the Tate, though lacking 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/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a> margins of the other Butts colour prints.
<br/>
<br/>The print illustrates Luke, xxiv, 36–40, the Apostles ‘terrified and affrighted’ at Christ's appearance. Most if not all of the other prints in this series seem to be condemnatory in character, showing the divided Man in his fallen state. It is tempting therefore to see this apparently more positive scene also in a negative sense, as showing Doubting Thomas. Rossetti indeed lists this as a separate subject seen by him in the Butts collection, ‘Christ overcoming the incredulity of Thomas’, 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/t/tempera" title="Glossary definition for 'Tempera'"><span>tempera</span></a>, ‘Great in the expression of speechless, unspeakable adoration in the other ten Apostles, earth bowed’ (Rossetti 1863, p.229 no.165, and 1880, p.241 no.189; Butlin no.328). This is untraced and may well be a mistake for the Yale version of the colour print. In support of this interpretation is the similarity pointed out by Helmstadter between the figure of Christ in the colour print and that in the illustration to Young's <i>Night Thoughts</i>, 1796–7 (Butlin no.330 265; repr. Helmstadter 1972–3, pl.5, and Erdman and Moore 1973) which is identified by him as showing Christ with St Thomas; the only important difference (possibly significant?) is that in the print Christ's left foot is forward rather than his right. David Bindman on the other hand stresses the opposition between the one young apostle who regards the risen Christ with adoration and the others who bow themselves before Him as if He were an idol. The fact that the layout 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/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> resembles that of ‘The Good Farmer’ (see <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-good-farmer-probably-the-parable-of-the-wheat-and-the-tares-verso-rough-sketch-n05198" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05198</span></a>) is probably without significance.
<br/>
<br/>On the other hand the fact that the design seems to be a counterpart to ‘The House of Death’ (<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-house-of-death-n05060" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05060</span></a>) suggests that the meaning may be a positive one, contrasting the merciful god of the New Testament with the vengeful god of the old. Michael Tolley, in conversation in 1988, suggests that the figures looking upwards in the two compositions represent Hope and Fear respectively.
<br/>
<br/>Early titles given to this design are no help. In the Butts account the design was called simply ‘Christ appearing’. What seems to be this version, though it may perhaps have been the version now in Washington, was sold with the stock of Joseph Hogarth at Southgate's in 1854 as ‘Our Saviour appearing to His Disciples’, and seems also to have been referred to by Frederick Tatham in a letter of 6 November 1862 to William Rossetti, mentioning seven prints that he had offered to ‘Mr Ferguson of Tynemouth’ some years earlier, as ‘the Saviour’. That this version is that subsequently sold from the Hogarth collection is probable in view of the likely history of the other large colour prints later in the Pease collection (see Butlin 1981, p.158).</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin, <i>William Blake 1757-1827</i>, Tate Gallery Collections, V, London 1990
<br/>
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-08T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: expressive actions: postures and motions adults Apostle Bible: New Testament bowing Christ disbelief diseases and conditions emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas group groups kneeling Luke, chapter 24 man people prayer religion and belief Resurrection shock standing universal religious imagery wounded