Composition study for "The Ascension" altarpiece, All Angels Church, New York

In 1900 Oakley received her first significant commission to provide decorations for the chancel of All Angels Episcopal Church at 81st Street and West End Avenue in New York. Oakley designed five small lancet windows of saints with guardian angels, a mosaic of the Ascension of Christ, for which this composition study was made, and two apse murals of the Heavenly Host, the “army” of angels loyal to God. When completed, her work was admired for its dazzling color, the reverence in the treatment of the religious subjects, and the combined qualities of serenity and sweetness in the figures. Sadly, the commission that launched Oakley’s career as a muralist is lost. The contents of All Angels Church were auctioned in 1981 prior to the building being razed. The murals tore when they were being taken down and were presumably destroyed, along with the mosaic and windows. But cartoons for the windows and preparatory drawings for the Heavenly Host and other design elements offer a glimpse into this important project.