With a faint halo, he walks away along the pale path.
Bible in art · Matthew
Christ Leaving the Tomb (Le Christ sortant du tombeau)
Gustave Doré · 1850–83
The Met, New York
This is a sketch, not a print: Doré painted it in gouache and brown ink over black chalk on brown paper. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which owns it, dates it only broadly, between 1850 and 1883.
It is night. At the left, the dark mouth of a tomb opens in the rock, and soldiers in armor doze beside it. A figure in a white robe, with a faint halo, walks away from the tomb along the pale path. In the sky above, a crowd of winged figures is brushed in quick grey strokes.
From the text
- Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to the tomb “at dawn on the first day of the week” (Matthew 28:1)
- “The guards trembled in fear of him and became like dead men.” (Matthew 28:4)
- “He is not here; He has risen, just as He said!” (Matthew 28:6)
The artist’s own
- The risen figure walking away from the tomb — Matthew does not describe the moment itself
- A night sky with stars and a host of angels, while Matthew speaks of one angel at dawn
- The guards drowsing, not trembling, and no women yet
Details
The figure in white
The guards
Soldiers in armor doze beside the tomb, leaning on their spears.
The tomb
A dark doorway opens in the rock.
Winged figures
A host of angels is brushed into the sky in grey.
Gustave Doré, French, 1832–1883. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Dodge Fund, 1960; acc. 60.147) · Gouache and brush and brown ink; over black chalk on brown paper · Public Domain — The Met Open Access (CC0). The Met Collection API record: "isPublicDomain": true; The Met marks such works on its website "with the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) icon".