Winged and in white, he sits on a block of stone.
Bible in art · Mark
The Angel and the Women at the Tomb
Gustave Doré · 1866 (designs for La Sainte Bible, Tours); this printing 1873–1874
National Library of Poland, Warsaw
H. Pisan engraved this plate; his name is at the lower right. The tomb becomes a great cave, and the light enters with the women at the top of the stairs and gathers on the white figure below.
Two women in long veils come down the rock steps and stop. On a block of stone sits a winged young figure in a white robe, one arm raised high, looking toward them. At the right a dark doorway opens in the rock, a flat stone slab lying before it.
From the text
- “they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side” (Mark 16:5)
- “Do not be alarmed.” (Mark 16:6)
- “He is not here! See the place where they put Him.” (Mark 16:6)
The artist’s own
- The young man drawn with wings, as painters traditionally drew an angel
- Two women; Mark names three: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome (Mark 16:1)
- A deep cave with rock-cut stairs
Details
The young man
The raised hand
He points upward.
The women
Two veiled women come down the steps.
The slab
A flat stone lies before the dark doorway.
Gustave Doré, French, 1832–1883. National Library of Poland (Biblioteka Narodowa), Warsaw — «Pismo Święte Starego i Nowego Testamentu», vol. 2, Warsaw: M. Glücksberg, 1874 (acc. 75.267 A) · Wood engraving after Gustave Doré’s design · National Library of Poland (Polona): the record of the volume gives the licence «Domena Publiczna» (Public Domain), «copyrightProtected»: false; the scan was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by the library itself («Polona Upload», GLAM-Wiki partnership: “This file was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons as part of a GLAM-Wiki partnership between the National Library of Poland and Wikimedia Polska”), linking its Polona record.