Shields was commissioned to decorate the interior of The Chapel of the Ascension, Bayswater by its benefactress, Emilia Russell Gurney. Shields first met Gurney in 1882, and later she sent both Shields and architect Herbert Horne to the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore della Pietrasanta in Naples for inspiration. After the building’s exterior was completed by Horne in 1894, Shields began work on his series of murals and panels depicting imagery from both the Old and New Testaments, including this watercolour of Malachi (see also a design for St Jude from the same scheme, also in WMG’s collection: BrD77). Sheilds discusses the paintings in his pamphlet Chapel of the Ascension: Its Story and Scheme (twelve editions published by the Women’s Printing Society between 1897 and 1935). The work was finally completed in 1910; however, the Chapel and its decorative scheme were destroyed during the Blitz in 1944.
