This window illustrates a central moment in the Christian faith, when the tomb in which the body of Jesus was placed after his crucifixion is found to be empty. According to the Gospels, visiting women – named here as Mary Magdalene and Mary, mother of James – were told by an angelic figure that Jesus had risen from the dead and been resurrected. The miraculous nature of this absence and reappearance underpins the Easter tradition. The window was installed in the north-east apse of the Barbadoes Street Cemetery Chapel in memory of Maria Thomson (1809–1875), who ran the first school in Ōtautahi Christchurch to provide secondary education for girls. It was removed prior to the demolition of the chapel in 1955.

(Absence, May 2023)