Oil painting by Thomas Stothard depicting characters from Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' (Act II, Scene 3)'. Great Britain, ca. late 18th, early 19th century.

Oil on canvas depicting characters from Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night'.

Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857

Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857
Extract from Parkinson, Ronald, Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860. Victoria & Albert Museum, HMSO, London, 1990. p.xviii.

John Sheepshanks (1784-1863) was the son of a wealthy cloth manufacturer. He entered the family business, but his early enthusiasms were for gardening and the collecting of Dutch and Flemish prints. He retired from business at the age of 40, by which time he had begun collecting predominantly in the field of modern British art. He told Richard Redgrave RA, then a curator in the South Kensington Museum (later the V&A) of his intention to give his collection to the nation. The gallery built to house the collection was the first permanent structure on the V&A site, and all concerned saw the Sheepshanks Gift as forming the nucleus of a National Gallery of British Art. Sheepshanks commissioned works from contemporary artists, bought from the annual RA summer exhibitions, but also bought paintings by artists working before Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837. The Sheepshanks Gift is the bedrock of the V&A's collection of British oil paintings, and served to encourage many other collectors to make donations and bequests.

Historical significance: Thomas Stothard (1755-1834) was a highly prolific painter, book illustrator and designer. After his father's death in 1770 he began his working life apprenticed to a Huguenot silk weaver. At the completion of his apprenticeship in 1777 he entered the Royal Academy Schools, and there struck up life-long friendships with the sculptor John Flaxman and with William Blake. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1778 until his death in 1834, and from 1778 also began to produce illustrations for various publishers and magazines such as the Ladies' Magazine. He sometimes exhibited the original designs for such illustrations at the Royal Academy exhibitions. In his day he was highly respected as a history painter in oil, but the V&A collections of drawings and watercolours reflect his reputation during the 19th century predominantly as an illustrator, as well as a designer of a multitude of objects such as silver salvers to funerary monuments. As the Dictionary of National Biography notes, Stothard took 'advantage of the opportunities afforded by publishing and the industrial arts, while maintaining a reputation in the more respectable reaches of high art'. For example Stothard exhibited works on a grander scale than was his norm for Bowyer's 'Historic Gallery' (1790-1806). But many of the oils now in the V&A are on a modest scale and are perhaps designs for printed illustrations, rather than 'finished' history paintings. Stothard played a respected part in the art world of his day, and from 1812 until his death at the age of seventy-nine he held the post of librarian of the Royal Academy.

The subject of this painting is taken from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Act ii, Scene 3:
Sir Toby Belch (singing): 'There dwelt a man in Babylon; lady! lady!'
Malvolio: 'My masters, are you mad? Or what are you? Have you no wit, manner, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do ye make an alehouse of my lady's house, that ye squeak out your coziers' catches without any mitigation or remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?'

In 18th century Britain William Shakespeare's plays underwent something of a renaissance in popularity. A number of significant new editions of his work were published and the theatrical revival from the mid 18th century relied heavily on productions of his plays. Shakespeare had become associated with a rising British nationalism, which led also to a growing interest in British history. This tendency was exploited by John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery; Boydell was an engraver and publisher who commissioned oil paintings for exhibition, with the intention of generating interest in printed versions. He began the project in 1786, which led to an illustrated edition of Shakespeare's plays, and a folio of prints. It is not clear whether Stothard exhibited finished oil paintings in Boydell's gallery, but he contributed designs to both the Folio and the Illustrated edition; unfortunately the subject matter of the V&A's paintings of Shakespeare by Stothard do not match any of these works.

It remains unclear therefore as to whether this small oil painting is a sketch for a printed illustration or is a finished oil intended primarily for display and sale. On the one hand the image has so far not been matched to a finished print or illustration, and modesty of scale is no indication of function as large scale oils were rare in Stothard's oeuvre. On the other, Stothard was so prolific as an illustrator and designer that it may yet prove to be a design for an illustration.

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