Abigail confronting the army of David

Colman was a prominent dissenter in Bristol, meaning that he opposed the established church and attended an independent chapel. His work has often been confused with that of John Martin, and his namesake, Samuel Coleman, an American painter of the Hudson River School. His reputation was re-established in the 1970s, after an exhibition entitled The Bristol School of Artists: Francis Danby and Painting in Bristol 1810-1840 was held at Bristol City Art Gallery in 1973. There are clear stylistic similarities between the current work and The Temple of Flora, another sublime Arcadian landscape by the artist now in Tate Britain.

The present painting appears to be a smaller version of an oil on panel measuring 29¼ x 41½ in.,offered at Sotheby's, London on 2 March 1983, lot 64. The Biblical subject is taken from 1 Samuel, chapter 25. David sent an army of four hundred men against Nabal, who had offended him. Nabal's wife, Abigail, heard of this, and mounted on an ass, hurried to meet David. She also told her servants to bring 'two hundred loaves and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and an hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs'. She met David and his army and persuaded him to avoid bloodshed. On Nabal's subsequent death, she became David's wife.