Study for Sarah Tubb and the Heavenly Visitors, 1933

The oil painting of Sarah Tubb and the Heavenly Visitors, (Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham, 1933, (Bell 151) was based on a story Spencer recalled from his childhood. Spencer's father had told him that Sally Tubb, an old inhabitant of Cookham, had been frightened by the extraordinary sunset created by the tail of Halley's comet, and fearing that the end of the world had come, she prayed in the street. In the painting, however, Spencer replaced Sally Tubb for her daughter Sarah, whom he had seen about in Cookham during his childhood. (See K. Bell, op. cit., p.428).