the huge painting is set in the grounds of the holy trinity church, cookham, and shows spencer's friends and family from cookham and hampstead, and others emerging from graves watched by figures of god, christ and the saints. to the left of the church some of the resurrected are climbing over a stile, others are making their way to the river to board a thames pleasure boat, others are simply inspecting their headstones. spencer created the picture in the early years of his marriage to carline and she appears three times in the picture. overall, the goupil exhibition was a great success with thirty-nine of the displayed paintings being sold. "the resurrection, cookham" was purchased by lord duveen, who presented it to the tate. after the exhibition spencer moved to burghclere to begin work on the sandham memorial chapel for the behrends.