Clementine Hunter painted numerous works while serving as a field hand, housekeeper, and cook at Melrose Plantation in Louisiana. Her large-scale murals decorated three properties on the plantation: the African House, the Ghana House, and the Yucca House. This work was created for Yucca House, where it hung above the headboard of a four-post bed of Francois Mignon, the plantation’s historian and curator. Hunter depicts all the participants in her holy scene as African Americans, like her, including heavenly angels who witness and herald the miraculous events. Through her vision, biblical events are transformed into scenes of daily life, bringing the sacred closer to the everyday and making them available and relevant to all.

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