Stanfield's reputation is largely as a marine painter, in which capacity many of his contemporaries regarded him as the equal of Turner. This opinion we can now see was rather over-generous but he was undoubtedly one of the most accomplished painters of his generation. Thus it is strange that he was totally omitted from the exhibition 'The Great Age of British Watercolours 1750-1880' at the Royal Academy in 1993. I wonder if Stanfield's ghost was upset for he had been a popular Royal Academician. And in a period when many of the academicians were larger than life characters, Stanfield must have had one of the most varied curricula vitae in the Academy's long history: child actor, sailor, scene painter, as well as the more usual easel painter and topographical illustrator.
Clarkson Stanfield was born in Sunderland in 1793, his father James Stanfield being an actor and cam-paigner against slavery. Born in Ireland, James had once served on a slave ship and the experience made him join the abolitionists, one of whose leaders. Rev. Thomas Clarkson, became a friend. Apparently the young Clarkson inherited his artistic skill from his mother and it is assumed that as a boy he helped paint stage scenery, as well as occasionally acting in his father's company. At the age of 13, he was apprenticed to a heraldic coach painter in Edinburgh but this failed as the painter's wife, who was addicted to gin, used the boy to convert her husband's assets into a more liquid form. Two years later, in 1808, Stanfield went to sea in a Shields collier. While in London in July 1812, he was press-ganged into the Navy and naval records describe him variously as foremast hand and as a clerk. Giving his name falsely as Roderick Bland, he served in the Sheerness guardship H.M.S. Namur. With little to do on board, the crew made their own entertainments and Stanfield painted scenery for shipboard theatricals. After a fall on an anchor, he was discharged as unfit for service but evidently he recovered for by March 1815 he had joined the merchant service as a seaman on board the East Indiaman Warley and sailed for China.

Left. figure 4. Clarkson Stanfield, Orford Castle, Suffolk, signed l.r. 'C Stanfield R.A.',pencil and watercolour with gum arabic, heightened with touches of bodycolour and scratching out, 10in. x 13in. sold for £4,800 in 2005. (© Christie's Images Ltd [2005])

The following year, Stanfield intended to sail for India but the voyage was cancelled and, short of money, he was taken on as a scene painter at the Royalty Theatre in Stepney, a London theatre frequented by sailors from the nearby docks. His painting career was now launched. As a scene painter, his rise was rapid as he moved on to the new Royal Coburg Theatre (now the Old Vic) in 1818, Astley's Amphitheatre (1819-21) and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane from 1822. Here he worked with his friend, the Scottish painter David Roberts. Until 1834, Stanfield was regarded as the most brilliant theatrical painter of his day, making his reputation particularly with graet moving dioramas for Christmas pantomimes. These were immense scenes, 20 feet high and hundreds of feet long that were unrolled across the stage. One late production (of 1831), with the surprising title of'Harlequin and Little Thumb', depicted Venice and its adjacent islands, showing all the principal buildings and, as the playbill put it, 'the Lagunes [sic] at dusk. The Bridge of Sighs, by Moonlight'. These were based on sketches made on his second Italian tour of 1830. The Venetian view in figure 1 is very similar to the watercolour dated 1831 now in the British Museum that was engraved for Heath's Picturesque Annual (1832). The dioramas were enhanced by lighting effects and stage machinery. At the same time as his reputation was rising as a stage painter, Stanfield caused some astonishment by establishing himself as an easel painter. Perhaps this should not have come as such a surprise. Stanfield's friend William Makepeace Thackeray commented that he 'taught pit and gallery to admire landscape art and the boxes to become connoisseurs'.