Design, possibly by Clarkson Stanfield, for the interior of a classical chamber. 18th or 19th century

Design for the corner and end of a classical chamber with a vaulted coffered ceiling, showing, to right, an arched central recess on an end dias running the full width of the chamber, with full width shallow steps leading up from left and, to left of the recess, a door with a columned side gallery at an upper level on the side wall, painted in brown-grey wash on a joined piece of laid paper. At some stage the design has been folded into a tube and flattened and later unrolled and backed onto a thinner strengthening sheet of laid paper. itself made up of two pieces. The original drawing sheet has a watermark of a double ring border around a seated emperor-like figure with a fan [?] in his right hand and an orb in his left, and a canopy over.

Acquired from the Bagshawe Estate

Clarkson Stanfield had two children by his first marriage and ten by his second to Rebecca Adcock (d.1876). The theatre designs, S.13 - S.99-2000, and other Stanfield studio residue passed to the oldest surviving son of the second marriage, George Clarkson Stanfield (1828-78), also a painter. He died of liver disease at the Hampstead home of his sister, Harriet Thesesa (1837-1911). In 1861 Harriet had married William Henry Gunning Bagshaw (1825-1901), a barrister, QC and judge, and the couple had a large family, of whom the fifth child, Joseph John Richard Bagshawe (1870-1909), was also a professional artist. Joseph married in 1901 and had two sons, Edward and K.G.R., the latter becoming a solicitor in the firm of Seaton, Gray, Bell and Bagshawe at Whitby. The collection of Clarkson Stanfield designs (S.13 - S.99-2000) was discovered in K.G.R. Bagshawe's attic on the latter's death. It had presumably been left with his grandmother, Harriet, on George Stanfield's death and been passed down through the family. K.G.R.'s daughter, Susie, took the designs to Christie's for a probate valuation, and Christie's alerted Dr Pieter van der Merwe of the National Maritime Museum, an acknowledged expert on Clarkson Stanfield. Dr van der Merwe then contacted the Theatre Museum. The collection comprises working designs and model pieces made in the Drury Lane scene room from the mid-1820s to the mid-1840s.

S.42-2000