The subject is closely related to that of lot 60, the Angel appearing immediately prior to Satan's being cast into Hell. 'And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men...' (Revelation, ch.19, vs.17-18).
This and lot 62 were both painted in 1910, the year that Stock's identification with Blake reached a climax in his move to Felpham, on the Sussex coast, where Blake had spent the years 1800-03. In fact the two designs are not his most Blakean, although the gesture of the Angel in lot 61 clearly echoes that of Christ in Michelangelo's Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel; and, as Stock must have known, Michelangelo was a powerful influence on Blake. He was perhaps also aware of Turner's late painting of The Angel standing in the Sun in the Tate Gallery, with its brilliant irridescent colours