The Angel Appearing to Zacharias

Blake devoted much of the year 1799–1800 to fifty biblical scenes drawn, a commission he received from his principal patron, the government clerk Thomas Butts. About thirty of these works have been identified; it is thought that some have not survived owing to the fragility of the materials. This scene illustrates verses from Luke (I:11–13), in which the archangel Gabriel appears to the righteous Zacharias, a high priest of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, to announce that Zacharias’s elderly and barren wife will give birth to a son, Saint John the Baptist.