AN ENGLISH CUBIST

WILLIAM ROBERTS:

David Choosing the Three Days' Pestilence

Illustration © The Estate of John David Roberts. Reproduced with the permission of the William Roberts Society. Catalogue information based on the catalogue raisonné by David Cleall. For this and full details of the exhibitions cited, see the links below. Any auction prices quoted may not include all fees and taxes, such as VAT and Artist's Resale Right charges.

David Choosing the Three Days' Pestilence, 1912
Pencil and ink on paper, 47.8 cm x 41.8 cm

'And David said unto the Lord, I have sinned greatly in that I have done: and now, I beseech thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly. For when David was up in the morning, the word of the Lord came unto the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying, Go and say unto David, Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things; choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee. So Gad came to David, and told him, and said unto him, Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies, while they pursue thee? or that there be three days' pestilence in thy land? now advise, and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me. And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: let us fall now into the hand of the Lord; for his mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man. So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning even to the time appointed: and there died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba seventy thousand men' (2 Samuel 24:10–15).
PROVENANCE: Professor Henry Tonks (1927) > ? > Tate Gallery (T06668, presented by Patricia Butchard, Valerie Bevis and Suzanne Tupper 1992)
EXHIBITION HISTORY: University College 1927, Hayward Gallery 1974, Newcastle 2004, Tate Britain 2012