The Dead Christ with Angels

Edouard Manet often reinterpreted his own paintings as prints, using various techniques to bring his work to a broader audience. Here, he relied on a combination of aquatint and repeating marks to realistically suggest Christ’s lifeless body in the tomb where he was placed following his crucifixion. The figure’s vacant gaze and the deep shadows behind him led critics to deride the work as grotesque in its realism. The etching was the largest Manet made and, perhaps as a result, only a few impressions—including the one seen here—were made from the plate.