Study for Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta

Details

Sir Stanley Spencer, R.A. (1891-1959)
Study for Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta
pencil, partly squared for transfer
12¾ x 15¾ in. (32.4 x 40 cm.)
Executed in 1940

Provenance

with Piccadilly Gallery, London.

Literature

K. Bell, Stanley Spencer R.A., Royal Academy exhibition catalogue, London, 1980, p. 179, illustrated.
K. Bell, Stanley Spencer A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, London, 1992, no. 448, p. 519.

Exhibited

London, Piccadilly Gallery, Sir Stanley Spencer RA, A Collection of Paintings and Drawings, September 1978, no. 49.
London, Royal Academy, Stanley Spencer R.A., September-December 1980, no. 213.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

Keith Bell comments on the present work, 'An early drawing, later discarded, for Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta, unfinished 1959 (The Viscount Astor), and now in the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham. In it Christ is shown surrounded by his disciples, preaching in the horse-ferry barge, which is viewed from the lawn of the Ferry Hotel. Three other disciples stand pensively in the foreground while visitors seated at the tables listen idly to the oration.

In the oil painting the ferry was moved from its mooring in the backwater to the river bank shown on the left in the drawing. The viewpoint was also changed, and the event is viewed from an elevated position on Cookham Bridge. Spencer preserved the scene on the lawn in a more elaborate composition, Dinner on the Hotel Lawn, 1957 (Tate Britain).

The squared-up portion of the horse-ferry recurs in another drawing, Christ Preaching (private collection) (see K. Bell, Royal Academy exhibition catalogue, loc. cit.).

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