The Ten Commandments: Noah Summoning the Animals, alt. title Noah, universal father, calling up the beasts

This is one of a set of ten oil paintings based on Spencer’s illustrations for The Ten Commandments, commissioned by Robert Gathorne-Hardy in 1927 and published by the Mill House Press in 1934. The paintings were exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in February 1939. A proof copy of the corresponding lithograph is annotated by the artist, ‘Painted Jan 1938/Mrs Duncan Macgregor Australia’. Christine Macgregor, who along with her husband Duncan had become friends with Spencer while he was painting the mural scheme at Balliol College, Oxford, bequeathed this work to the Art Gallery of South Australia in 1975, together with Making of the Golden Calf and two other paintings by Spencer.

Date: 1938
Inscriptions: lr: GILBERT SPENCER
Tags: Biblical, Oil Paintings
Medium: Oil on canvas
Height (mm): 660
Width (mm): 900
Location: Art Gallery of South Australia 758P18
Exhibition History: Leicester Galleries 1939 (14)
Provenance: Bequest of Christine Margaret MacGregor 1975