In 1934, Gilbert Spencer was offered a commission from Bob Gathorne-Hardy at the Mill House Press to illustrate The Ten Commandments, a comprehensive and complicated subject that the artist savoured. ‘It was just the kind of employment I was wanting’, he wrote, ‘giving me a subject, scope, and discipline. I had to submit it for approval but there was not this time that tiresome question as to whether the drawing is like the sitter. Instead there could be discussion of a more interesting and varied kind.’ Back home in Cookham, after completing his paintings for the Oratory in Burghclere, Stanley quipped, ‘Gil has found the Commandments all broken in the Bible’. Indeed he had, and then set to joining them back together. Unlike many of his contemporaries and teaching colleagues who readily enjoyed acclaim as illustrators, Gilbert had relatively little experience. However, he thrived on the challenge, creating a folio of 11 large drawings (and two title page illustrations) brimming with visual incident and character, each drawn with a tight linearity, economy of expression and little waste. Gilbert’s characteristically controlled cross-hatched shading lent itself well to the lithographic process and the portfolio of large ‘tipped in’ prints on smooth woven cream paper were considered by both artist and publisher a success.