The Archangel Michael leaving Adam and Eve, after having conducted them out of Paradise

Phillips's The Archangel Michael Leaving Adam and Eve from 1816 is one of his rare history paintings—a large-scale work on a biblical subject that demonstrated his ambitions beyond the portrait practice that dominated his career. The subject from Paradise Lost's final books—Michael conducting the expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden—was a significant demonstration piece showing Phillips's ability to compete with contemporaries like Fuseli and Flaxman in the tradition of elevated literary and biblical history painting. The 1816 date places this alongside his portrait production at a period when he was also pursuing the more ambitious Miltonic subjects that showed his engagement with the Romantic tradition's engagement with epic literary sources.

The Miltonic scene is rendered with the polished academic technique of Phillips's training. The dramatic subject required a different approach from his typical portrait work, with more ambitious figure composition and landscape elements.