Fire at sea

Clarkson Stanfield

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Stanfield went to sea at eleven to escape apprenticeship to a drunken coach painter, was pressed into the Royal Navy in 1812, then took up scene painting at the Royalty Theatre, London after being discharged for injury in 1816. Known for stunning romantic effects, often created in partnership with David Roberts, the artist introduced moving dioramas into Christmas pantomimes and Easter spectacles, titled "Adventures of a Ship of War" (1825), "Napoleon’s Passage of the Simplon" (1830) and "Niagara" (1832). While touring painted panoramas around major British and European cities, Stanfield contributed to the exhibitions of the British Institution and Royal Academy, and was elected Associate at the latter in 1835 through the support of the "Sailor King" William IV. In 1844, he became first curator of the Naval Gallery at Greenwich. "Fire at Sea" combines visual drama with a knowledge of ships and the sea and once belonged to a family friend, the abolitionist Thomas Clarkson.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art