Painted at the Slessers’ house in Bourne End this picture was designed to form the right wing of a triptych in their chapel. The left wing was to be ‘St Veronica unmasking Christ’ (no. 4), while the central panel was a larger version of the overturning theme, which depicts Christ’s cleansing of the temple. The chapel setting turned Spencer’s thoughts to Renaissance art and the triptych format, though in the event the works were never hung together in this way