At Last - The Promised Land. Pencil on paper.

Important detailed preparatory study for the famous oil painting entitled The Promised Land. This large drawing is accompanied by a fine pencil study of the face of the sitter of this celebrated image, depicting an elderly bearded Jewish gentleman examining a map of Palestine. Nearby portraits include Lord Balfour and Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Clearly a picture directly inspired by the excitment generated following the issue of ther Balfour Declaration. “In the early 1920’s Spencelayh was discovered by one of those fairy-tale providers who most of us thought had vanished with the wigs and brocaded coats of the eighteenth century. Spencelayh’s patron was a Mr. Levy, a cotton merchant and business man from Manchester who offered [Spencelayh] a house, rent-free. [Levy] suggested some Jewish subjects [to paint] which sold very well… Mr. Levy had a lively and informed love of the arts, and the instinct and generous impluses of a true patron and Spencelayh’s output during this period in Manchester is an eloquent testimony to his benefactor… One of [Spencelayh’s] works exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1926 was The Promised Land, a subject quite likely suggested to him by Mr. Levy. ‘For the scene-setting I collected objects from various friends, ‘ Spencelayh recalled, ‘but the map of Palestine I had finally to purchase, and had great trouble to get it in the right size and colouring. At last I found quite a new one, which I put through a rapid course of “wear and tear”, to make it keep its place within the picture.” See A. Noakes, Spencelayh (1978) Plate 147 and see pp. 60-2 and 187 no. 3. Provenance: Exhibited Bond Street Galleries, London, April 1957. Sold to Sydney Boehm (1908-90), Hollywood screenwriter and producer, Beverly Hills, California. Associated labels on verso.