The four Gospels tell Easter morning in different ways. They count the women differently and the angels differently. All four name Mary Magdalene.
Painters noticed. The twelve pictures below span six centuries, from the chapel Giotto painted in Padua to Henry Ossawa Tanner’s studio in France, and they follow her through the morning in roughly the order the Gospels tell it.
Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb is the Easter scene told most fully in John 20:1–18. She finds the stone removed, weeps outside the tomb, sees two angels and then meets the risen Jesus, whom she first takes for the gardener. Painters have returned to it for centuries. Well-known versions include Giotto’s fresco in Padua, Fra Angelico’s in Florence, Titian’s Noli me Tangere in London and Rembrandt’s Christ and St Mary Magdalen at the Tomb in the Royal Collection.
Mary Magdalene at the tomb, at a glance
- The scene: Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Jesus on Easter morning
- Where to read it: John 20:1–18, and also Matthew 28:1–10, Mark 16:1–11 and Luke 24:1–12
- In this guide: 12 paintings dated from about 1305 to 1910, and one extra in which she does not appear
- The Latin title you will meet: Noli me tangere, “do not touch me,” from John 20:17
- Her feast day: 22 July
- Bible text quoted here: Berean Standard Bible (BSB)
The story in one minute
Early on Sunday, while it is still dark, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb and finds it open. She runs to tell Peter and another disciple, who come, look inside and go home. Mary stays. She sees two angels, then a man she takes for the gardener, and then he says her name.
While it was still dark
1. Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo, Mary Magdalene (about 1535–40)
The story: Before sunrise on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb outside Jerusalem where Jesus has been buried.
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.
John 20:1 · BSB
Savoldo moves the first Easter morning to Venice. Behind her, says the National Gallery, “dawn is breaking over the Venetian lagoon,” and she is identified by her ointment jar and by “the glimpse of her traditional red dress beneath a silver-grey shawl.” The museum leaves one question open. She may be arriving at the tomb, or this may be a close-up of the moment she turns and sees Jesus. The picture exists in four versions, and the other three are in Berlin, Florence and Los Angeles.
2. Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Three Marys (1910)
The story: Just after sunrise, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome walk to the tomb with spices, asking who will move the stone for them.
Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they went to the tomb. They were asking one another, “Who will roll away the stone from the entrance of the tomb?” But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, even though it was extremely large.
Mark 16:2–4 · BSB
Tanner never shows the tomb. He shows the women’s faces. The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s 1991 catalogue takes the leading figure for the Magdalene because of her long, loose hair, and reads the warm light on the women as “the moment of revelation.” Tanner sent the picture to the Paris Salon in 1910, and it now belongs to Fisk University in Nashville.
The empty tomb
3. Fra Angelico, The Resurrection of Christ and the Women at the Tomb (1440–42)
The story: At the tomb an angel tells the women that Jesus has risen, and invites them to see the place where his body lay.
But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; He has risen, just as He said! Come, see the place where He lay.”
Matthew 28:5–6 · BSB, excerpt
This fresco was never meant for a gallery. Fra Angelico painted it on the wall of a friar’s cell in the convent of San Marco in Florence, one of 44 cells that were frescoed there between 1439 and 1443. The kneeling figure at the lower left is Saint Dominic in meditation, an example for the friar who lived in the room. According to the Web Gallery of Art, the three women standing at the right were painted by a young assistant, Benozzo Gozzoli.
4. William Bouguereau, The Holy Women at the Tomb (1890)
The story: Inside the tomb the women see a young man in a white robe, and they are alarmed.
When they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
Mark 16:5 · BSB
Bouguereau’s canvas is more than two and a half metres tall, and it toured like a celebrity. It went from the Paris Salon of 1890 to Stuttgart, Berlin and Chicago, and then to the 1894 World’s Fair in Antwerp, where he was paid 23,500 francs for it. Conservative critics called it a masterpiece. Émile Zola thought painting of this kind had “no vigour, no vitality.” It hangs in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, where you can decide for yourself.
One more, without her: Eugène Burnand’s running disciples (1898)
Then Peter and the other disciple set out for the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
John 20:3–4 · BSB
Mary is not in this picture, but she is the reason for it. John says she ran to the two men with the words “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb.” Burnand, a Swiss painter, showed the canvas at a Paris Salon in 1898, and it now belongs to the Musée d’Orsay. The two disciples look inside and go home. The next painting belongs to the one who stayed.
Outside the tomb, weeping
5. James Tissot, Mary Magdalene Questions the Angels in the Tomb (1886–1894)
The story: Mary stays outside the tomb weeping, bends down to look in, and finds two angels sitting where the body of Jesus had been.
But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent down to look into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and the other at the feet. “Woman, why are you weeping?” they asked. “Because they have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I do not know where they have put Him.”
John 20:11–13 · BSB
This is one of 350 watercolours of the life of Christ that Tissot painted after travelling to the Middle East to study the land and its people. In 1900 the museum’s forerunner in Brooklyn bought the whole set for $60,000, at the suggestion of the painter John Singer Sargent. Most of the money came from the public, urged on by the local newspaper.
6. Edward Burne-Jones, The Morning of the Resurrection (1886)
The story: Mary turns from the angels and sees a man standing behind her, and she does not know that it is Jesus.
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there. But she did not recognize that it was Jesus.
John 20:14 · BSB
Burne-Jones showed this at the Grosvenor Gallery in London with John 20:14 beside it. He chose the pause before she knows, and each angel holds a hand to the mouth. His wife Georgiana recorded that he inscribed the canvas “In Memoriam L. L. Easter 1886” for Laura Lyttelton, a young friend who died that Easter. The inscription can no longer be seen.
7. Rembrandt, Christ and St Mary Magdalen at the Tomb (1638)
The story: Jesus asks Mary why she is weeping, and she takes him for the gardener.
“Woman, why are you weeping?” Jesus asked. “Whom are you seeking?” Thinking He was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried Him off, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him.”
John 20:15 · BSB
John says Mary mistakes Jesus for the gardener; he does not describe Jesus’s clothes or tools. Rembrandt gives the mistake a visible explanation: his Christ wears a broad straw hat, carries a spade and has a knife tucked into his belt. For a moment, the viewer can make Mary’s mistake too. The panel is small, about 61 by 50 centimetres. It has belonged to the British royal family since 1819, when the future George IV bought it. You will meet it under two titles. The Royal Collection calls it Christ and St Mary Magdalen at the Tomb, and our gallery lists it as The Risen Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalen.
“Mary.”
The next four paintings show the same few seconds. In Latin the scene is called Noli me tangere, “do not touch me,” after the words of Jesus in John 20:17.
8. Giotto, Resurrection (Noli me tangere) (about 1305)
The story: In the garden beside the tomb, the risen Jesus appears first to Mary Magdalene.
Early on the first day of the week, after Jesus had risen, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had driven out seven demons.
Mark 16:9 · BSB
This is the oldest picture in the guide. Giotto painted it on the wall of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, which was consecrated in 1305. He fits the whole morning into one frame, with the angels on the tomb, the guards asleep in front of it, and Mary on her knees reaching toward Jesus. You will see the same arrangement of the two figures in the three paintings that follow. The verse comes from the longer ending of Mark’s Gospel. Some early manuscripts end at Mark 16:8, as the BSB’s textual note explains; verses 9–20 belong to the longer ending preserved in many Bibles.
9. Fra Angelico, Noli me tangere (1440–42)
The story: Jesus says her name, and Mary knows him.
Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
John 20:16 · BSB
In cell 1 of the same convent, Fra Angelico painted the meeting itself. Christ carries a hoe over his shoulder, a reminder of the gardener Mary took him for. The garden is in flower, and the two hands come close without touching. It was painted for the wall of a friar’s bedroom.
10. Titian, Noli me Tangere (about 1514)
The story: Jesus tells Mary not to cling to him and sends her to his brothers. The reaching hand belongs to the painter’s telling of the encounter.
“Do not cling to Me,” Jesus said, “for I have not yet ascended to the Father.”
John 20:17 · BSB, excerpt
Titian was a young man when he painted this. X-rays show that he reworked the landscape many times. He seems never to have included the empty tomb, which almost every other painter of the subject puts in.
The painting has a second story. During the Second World War the National Gallery’s pictures were hidden in a Welsh slate mine, and the Gallery decided to bring one back each month. A letter in The Times in January 1942 explained why: “Because London’s face is scarred and bruised these days, we need more than ever to see beautiful things.” This was the first painting to return.
11. Alexander Ivanov, Christ’s Appearance to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection (1835)
The story: Jesus sends Mary to his disciples with a message.
“But go and tell My brothers, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.’”
John 20:17 · BSB, excerpt
Ivanov finished this canvas in his studio in Rome and sent it home to Saint Petersburg, where it was exhibited in 1836. The Imperial Academy of Arts made him an Academician for it, and his sponsors presented the painting to Tsar Nicholas I. Ivanov’s own payment of 1,500 silver roubles did not reach him until 1843.
“I have seen the Lord”
12. Nikolai Ge, Heralds of the Resurrection (1867)
The story: The women hurry from the tomb to tell the disciples, while some of the guards go into the city to report to the chief priests.
So they hurried away from the tomb in fear and great joy, and ran to tell His disciples.
Matthew 28:8 · BSB
The title is plural, and the painting has two sets of messengers. A woman hurries toward the light with the news, and she is usually identified as Mary Magdalene, whom Matthew names first among the women. In the shadow at the right are the guards, who in Matthew’s account will be paid to tell a different story. Ge signed the canvas in Florence on 23 February 1867 and sent it to Saint Petersburg. The Imperial Academy refused to exhibit it, because its council feared the picture would lead people to wrong judgments about a sacred subject.
John gives Mary the last word of the morning.
Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them what He had said to her.
John 20:18 · BSB
John’s account takes Mary from searching for a body to announcing a living person: “I have seen the Lord!” Luke’s separate account says the disciples dismissed the women’s report as nonsense (Luke 24:11). The Gospels do not let the first witnesses’ joy become instant, universal belief. Mary’s five-word announcement still has to be heard.
Pray with one of these paintings: a 4-step Visio Divina
Visio Divina is Latin for “divine seeing.” It means praying with a picture the way you might pray with a passage of Scripture. Try it with Fra Angelico’s Noli me tangere, which was painted for a room where a friar prayed.
- Look. Give the painting a full minute. Follow the space between the two hands, then let your eye go wherever it wants.
- Meditate. Read John 20:16 slowly. Mary does not recognise Jesus by his face or his clothes. She recognises him when he says her name. When did you last feel known like that?
- Pray. Tell God what you came looking for this morning, and what you found in its place.
- Contemplate. Rest for a few minutes with one word of the passage. “Mary” is a good one to start with, and so is your own name.
Questions people ask about Mary Magdalene at the tomb
- Who was the first person to see the risen Jesus?
- Mary Magdalene, according to Mark 16:9 and John 20:14–16. Matthew 28:9 has Jesus meeting Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” together as they leave the tomb.
- What does Noli me tangere mean?
- It is Latin for “do not touch me,” the traditional Latin wording of what Jesus says to Mary in John 20:17. The Berean Standard Bible translates the same words as “Do not cling to Me.”
- Why did Mary Magdalene think Jesus was the gardener?
- John says the tomb was in a garden, and that Mary did not recognise Jesus until he said her name. Painters show her mistake by giving Jesus a hat, a spade or a hoe, as Rembrandt, Fra Angelico and Titian do here.
- Was Mary Magdalene alone at the tomb?
- John names Mary Magdalene and follows her encounter closely, but does not explicitly say she came alone: in John 20:2 she tells the disciples, “we do not know where they have put Him!” Matthew names “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary.” Mark also names Salome; Luke names Joanna and other women. Paintings draw on these different accounts rather than a single fixed group.
- Why is Mary Magdalene called the apostle to the apostles?
- Because she was sent to tell the apostles that Jesus had risen. Medieval writers including Thomas Aquinas gave her the Latin title apostolorum apostola. In 2016 the Catholic Church raised her celebration on 22 July to the rank of a feast, the same rank as the apostles’ days.
- Where can I see these paintings?
- Titian’s and Savoldo’s are in the National Gallery, London. Burne-Jones’s belongs to Tate, and Rembrandt’s to the Royal Collection. Both Fra Angelico frescoes are in the Museum of San Marco in Florence, and Giotto’s is in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. Bouguereau’s is in Antwerp, Ivanov’s in Saint Petersburg, Ge’s in Moscow, Tissot’s in Brooklyn and Tanner’s in Nashville. Paintings move on and off view, so check before you travel.
Keep going
- Follow her whole story: Mary Magdalene in Art.
- Stay with the garden scene: Mary Magdalene and Noli me Tangere.
- More of this scene in our gallery: Fritz von Uhde, Woman, Why Weepest Thou? · Maurice Denis, Noli Me Tangere · Gustave Moreau, Noli me Tangere · William Holman Hunt, Christ and the Two Marys
- Meet the painter of number 2: Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Bible Paintings.
- Get the Visio Divina app for a new painting, a new verse and a new reflection every morning.