The night before the crucifixion.
Painted in oil on copper in 1873. Hanging in a Danish castle ever since.
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The angel, detail
Christ in Gethsemane
In 1873, Carl Heinrich Bloch completed this painting for the King's Chapel at Frederiksborg Castle. It was one of twenty-three works in the commission. Together they form the most significant cycle of Christian painting produced in the modern era.
The subject is the night before the crucifixion. Christ kneels alone in the garden. An angel has descended to comfort him. Bloch painted it in oil on copper.
Bloch constructed the scene around a single light source: the angel. Everything else recedes. The darkness is not incidental. It is the subject. Without it, the comfort means nothing.
The originals have never left Frederiksborg. They were made for a specific room, a specific light. This print is the closest most people will ever come.
Why This Print
Gethsemane is the hinge of the Passion. The night before the crucifixion, Christ kneels alone in the garden while his disciples sleep. He knows what is coming. An angel descends to strengthen him. Bloch painted this moment as both the depth of Christ's human anguish and the first movement of his obedience, the yes that makes Good Friday possible.
I chose Hahnemühle Museum Etching for this work. Bloch painted on copper, which gives the image an unusual luminosity: the angel's glow held against deep surrounding darkness is a controlled, deliberate effect. Museum Etching is a matte, heavily textured cotton paper that carries this contrast without washing it out. The surface accepts the full tonal range: the darkness stays dark; the light stays precise.
Bloch completed twenty-three paintings for the King's Chapel at Frederiksborg. They have never left Denmark. Christ in Gethsemane is among the most reproduced of the cycle, and among the least faithfully rendered. I wanted to change that.
My Process
I begin with the highest-resolution source of the painting available: institutional photography, museum archives, scholarly publications. From there I prepare the image for print: correcting damage, recovering faded colour, resolving the degradation that a century and a half of handling leaves behind. The aim is not interpretation. It is fidelity to the quality Bloch first achieved on copper.
The result is printed on Hahnemühle Museum Etching 350 gsm in my studio in Ptuj, Slovenia.
Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam.
For the greater glory of God.
The Print, Up Close
Essentials
Christ in Gethsemane
Hahnemühle Museum Etching · Printed in Slovenia
€65
€105
€165
Free European shipping · Worldwide delivery · Lifetime guarantee
My name is Dominic. I am an engineer from Ptuj, Slovenia's oldest city, but my vocation belongs to faith and art. I founded St. Dominic Press as a devotion: to bring the beauty of sacred art into the Christian home, held to the highest standards I know how to reach.
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The 1531 Reveal
The sacred image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, printed on archival canvas. The First Edition is limited to 48 numbered pieces. Each enters the St. Dominic Press Registry upon release. Registered collectors receive priority access before the public announcement.
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