Spencer described in a letter how in the evening after the races, the river craft drifted downstream to be near the concerts in the old horse ferry: ‘It isn’t such a far cry between people listening to Handel and people listening to Christ preaching.’ This is a study for the third work in the Cookham Regatta series, ‘Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta: Listening from Punts’, 1954. It is also one of two scenes drawn in the upper left-hand section of ‘Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta’ (no. 11) that appeared as independent pictures. The isteners sport costumes that were de rigueur in the heyday of regattas on the Thames.