Sketch for the Painting in the Chancel of St. Bartholomew, New York City

Francis Augustus Lathrop's preparatory sketch depicts a celestial vision framed by a golden arch against deep blue. A luminous angel hovers above a gathered multitude rendered in purple and red tones, radiating outward in loose, expressive brushwork. The composition combines academic religious imagery with decorative aesthetics characteristic of the 1890s. Lathrop, a prominent American designer and painter, developed this concept for a monumental chancel decoration—a major ecclesiastical commission requiring preliminary studies to establish the work's scale, light effects, and spiritual atmosphere before execution on the church's walls.