The Raising of Lazarus

Lucas van Leyden · in or before 1508
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Lucas van Leyden engraved this plate in or before 1508, as a very young man. He set the scene in a wood, with people climbing the trees to see.

Lazarus, thin and bearded, rises from a stone tomb in the ground. Jesus stands beside him and looks up. A woman kneels at the left with joined hands, and another stands at the right in a long veil.

From the text

A cave with a stone laid across the entrance (John 11:38)

Jesus lifted his eyes upward and prayed (John 11:41)

“Lazarus, come out!” (John 11:43)

The artist’s own

Onlookers climbing trees to see better

A tomb in the ground with a heavy lid

Clothes of Lucas’s time

Details

Lazarus

He rises from the tomb, bearded and thin.

Jesus

He stands beside the tomb and looks up.

A sister

A woman kneels with her hands joined.

In the tree

A man climbs a tree to see.

Lucas van Leyden, Netherlandish, c. 1489/94–1533. National Gallery of Art, Washington (Rosenwald Collection, 1950.1.106) · Engraving · NGA Open Access: "Images of these works are available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial, under Creative Commons Zero (CC0)." (NGA open data: published_images.csv openaccess = 1)

The verses

John 11:38–44Jesus, once again deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” Jesus said. “Lord, by now he stinks,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man. “It has already been four days.” Jesus replied, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Then Jesus lifted His eyes upward and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me, but I say this for the benefit of the people standing here, so they may believe that You sent Me.” After Jesus had said this, He called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The man who had been dead came out with his hands and feet bound in strips of linen, and his face wrapped in a cloth. “Unwrap him and let him go,” Jesus told them.