Fragment of a design by Clarkson Stanfield for Acis and Galatea, Drury Lane Theatre, 1842

Torn fragment of a design for Acis and Galatea, showing vegetation. Painted in pink, brown and green gouache.

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.

This design was made for George Frideric Handel's serenata, Acis and Galatea, staged by William Charles Macready at Drury Lane Theatre, 5 February 1842. The production was restaged by George Vining at the Princess's Theatre on 2 August 1869, using the same designs which were lent by Clarkson Stanfield's family.

S.90-2000