The Sermon on the Mount

Based on one of a series of drawings executed by Gilbert in 1913-15, but painted after his return from war in 1919. It was reworked by the artist after its first exhibition at the New English Art Club in 1922, and has since become one of his most widely exhibited paintings. Gilbert admitted that his Biblical paintings were influenced by those of his brother Stanley. The repetition of the Christ figure, and sculptural folds of the robes, find a precedent in Stanley Spencer’s works such as John Donne Arriving in Heaven (1911, Fitzwilliam Museum) and The Last Supper (Stanley Spencer Gallery, 1920).

Date: 1921
Inscriptions: Signed verso
Tags: Biblical, Oil Paintings
Medium: Oil on canvas
Height (mm): 1525
Width (mm): 1016
Location: Private collection
Exhibition History: NEAC, 66th exhibition, 1922 (1); (after repainting) Goupil 1923 (17); Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute; Buenos Aires, Salones de la Association Estimulo de Bellas Artes; Rio de Janeiro, Museo National de Bellas Artes; Leicester Galleries, 1934 (25); Brussels, International Exhibition, 1935; New York, World Fair, 1939; Christian Art, Park Lane, London, c. 1950; Christian Art, Reading, 1952; Reading, 1964 (8), illus. pl. 1); FAS 1974 (7), illus.
Provenance: The artist; FAS; Sotheby's London, 7 June 1978
Literature: Fleuron Press, 1926 pl. 4; Rothenstein, 1956, pp. 227-8, 230.