Clarkson Stanfield RA, ca. 1857

William Lake Price (ca.1810 - 1896)

RA Collection: Art

Clarkson Stanfield was interested in photography and owned a considerable collection of early British and French work including an album of calotypes by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson. It has been suggested that the version of 'A Dutch Blazer comming out of Monnickendam, Zuyder Zee' 1856, which can be seen on the easel in the photograph, is in fact a photograph itself, the visible edge of the picture being rather thin to be a canvas on a stretcher. If so, it may well have been supplied by Stanfield as it is known that some of his paintings were photographed in the 1850s and 1860s.

In July 1858, The Athenæeum reported the publication of Lake Price's portraits, describing that of Clarkson Stanfield as 'Mr Stanfield struggling to shape a yeasty storm, as he saw it when the mainmast went by the board...'