{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O133659"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O133659/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2007BL4107/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2007BL4107/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2007BL4107","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB7881","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O133659/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O133659","accessionNumber":"FA.204[O]","objectType":"Oil painting","titles":[{"title":"The Tempest (Act I, Scene 2)","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"","physicalDescription":"Oval oil on canvas depicting characters from Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Stothard, Thomas RA","id":"A8892"},"association":{"text":"painter (artist)","id":"AAT25136"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"oil paint","id":"AAT15050"},{"text":"canvas","id":"AAT14078"}],"techniques":[{"text":"oil painting","id":"AAT178684"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Oil on canvas","categories":[{"text":"Paintings","id":"THES48917"}],"styles":[{"text":"British School","id":"x30967"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2007BL4107","2017KB7881"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"B","id":"THES304635"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"oil paintings","id":"AAT33799"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Britain","id":"x32019"},"association":{"text":"painted","id":"AAT54216"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"late 18th century-early 19th century","earliest":"1775-01-01","latest":"1830-12-31"},"association":{"text":"painted","id":"x30138"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"10.75","unit":"in","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"estimate","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"12.375","unit":"in","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"estimate","note":""},{"dimension":"","value":"","unit":"","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":"Measurement taken at time of assessment prior to BH decant - Frame Dimensions (mm): H-366 W-425 D-58;\nPainting Dimensions (mm): not measured"}],"dimensionsNote":"Dimensions taken from <i>Summary catalogue of British Paintings</i>, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1973","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857\r\nExtract from Parkinson, Ronald, <u>Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860</U>.  Victoria & Albert Museum, HMSO, London, 1990.  p.xviii.\r\n\r\nJohn Sheepshanks (1784-1863) was the son of a wealthy cloth manufacturer.  He entered the family business, but his early enthusiasms were for gardening and the collecting of Dutch and Flemish prints.  He retired from business at the age of 40, by which time he had begun collecting predominantly in the field of modern British art.  He told Richard Redgrave RA, then a curator in the South Kensington Museum (later the V&A) of his intention to give his collection to the nation.  The gallery built to house the collection was the first permanent structure on the V&A site, and all concerned saw the Sheepshanks Gift as forming the nucleus of a National Gallery of British Art.  Sheepshanks commissioned works from contemporary artists, bought from the annual RA summer exhibitions, but also bought paintings by artists working before Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837.  The Sheepshanks Gift is the bedrock of the V&A's collection of British oil paintings, and served to encourage many other collectors to make donations and bequests.\n\nHistorical significance: Thomas Stothard (1755-1834) was a highly prolific painter, book illustrator and designer.  After his father's death in 1770 he began his working life apprenticed to a Huguenot silk weaver. At the completion of his apprenticeship in 1777 he entered the Royal Academy Schools, and there struck up life-long friendships with the sculptor John Flaxman and with William Blake.  He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1778 until his death in 1834, and from 1778 also began to produce illustrations for various publishers and magazines such as the <u>Ladies' Magazine</u>.  He sometimes exhibited the original designs for such illustrations at the Royal Academy exhibitions.  In his day he was highly respected as a history painter in oil, but the V&A collections of drawings and watercolours reflect his reputation during the 19th century predominantly as an illustrator, as well as a designer of a multitude of objects such as silver salvers to funerary monuments.  As the <u>Dictionary of National Biography</u> notes, Stothard took 'advantage of the opportunities afforded by publishing and the industrial arts, while maintaining a reputation in the more respectable reaches of high art'.  For example Stothard exhibited works on a grander scale than was his norm for Bowyer's 'Historic Gallery' (1790-1806).  But many of the oils now in the V&A are on a modest scale and are perhaps designs for printed illustrations, rather than 'finished' history paintings.  Stothard played a respected part in the art world of his day, and from 1812 until his death at the age of seventy-nine he held the post of librarian of the Royal Academy.\r\n\r\nIn 18th century Britain William Shakespeare's plays underwent something of a renaissance in popularity.  A number of significant new editions of his work were published and the theatrical revival from the mid 18th century relied heavily on productions of his plays.  Shakespeare had become associated with a rising British nationalism, which led also to a growing interest in British history.  This tendency was exploited by John Boydell's <u>Shakespeare Gallery</u>; Boydell was an engraver and publisher who commissioned oil paintings for exhibition, with the intention of generating interest in printed versions.  He began the project in 1786, which led to an illustrated edition of Shakespeare's plays, and a folio of prints.  It is not clear whether Stothard exhibited finished oil paintings in Boydell's gallery, but he contributed designs to both the <i>Folio</i> and the <i>Illustrated edition</i>; unfortunately the subject matter of the V&A's paintings of Shakespeare by Stothard do not match any of these works.  \r\n\r\nIt is likely that this small oil was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798 (no.160).  It was certainly engraved by Heath, and published as an illustration to <u>The Tempest</u> in the edition of Shakespeare's plays, issued singly from 1802 to 1804; the publishers were Heath and Robinson.  The project can be considered a rival to Boydell's illustrated publication of the <u>Dramatic Works</u> which appeared in 1802.  The publisher's handout declared that the plays would be illustrated with prints engraved by Heath after pictures painted for the purpose by West, Copley, Fuseli, W. Hamilton, J. Opie, Stothard, H. Tresham, F. Wheatley, R. Courbould, etc.\r\n\r\nAnna Eliza Bray [Mrs Bray], in <u>Life of Thomas Stothard, R.A.</u> (1851) referred to work done by Stothard for Kearsley and Heath's Shakespeare, which presumably means this edition.  According to her account, Heath broke a contract drawn up with Stothard, whereby the artist was to be the sole illustrator, and brought in \"Hamilton, Wheatley and others (artists now almost forgotten by the inferiority of their productions).\"\r\n\r\nThis picture illustrates Ariel's speech in <u>The Tempest</u>, Act I, Scene 2.\r\n<i>Ariel</i>: \".....  All but mariners / Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel, / then all a-fire with me : the king's son, Ferdinand, / With hair up-staring (then like reeds, not hair) / Was the first man that leap'd; cried, <i>'Hell is empty, / And all the devils are here.'</i>  \r\nA sheet of preparatory sketches exists in the Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Nottingham (a photograph is on the Departmental File for FA.204).","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Oil painting entitled 'The Tempest' by Thomas Stothard, depicting Act I, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's play.  Great Britain, ca. late 18th century, early 19th century.","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Mrs Bray [Anna Eliza Bray], <u>Life of Thomas Stothard, R.A.</u>, 1851, p.36."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"A.C. Coxhead, <u>Thomas Stothard, R.A., an illustrated monograph</u>, 1906, p.98"}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":["Shakespeare, <i>The Tempest</i>"],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["FA.204[O]"],"accessionNumberNum":"204","accessionNumberPrefix":"FA","accessionYear":null,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-16","recordCreationDate":"2007-04-04","availableToBook":true}}