Sheepshanks Gift

Interior with John Sheepshanks by William Mulready. It formed part of the gift in 1857

The Sheepshanks Gift was a major donation of artworks by the British art collector John Sheepshanks in 1857. It formed the basis of the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington.

The Yorkshire-born Sheepshanks had made a fortune as a cloth manufacturer. He was a leading collector of contemporary British art of the late Regency and early Victorian era. He frequently purchased notable paintings at the Royal Academy's annual Summer Exhibition and at the rival British Institution. He amassed works by leading artists such as John Constable, J.M.W. Turner, Clarkson Stanfield, David Roberts, William Mulready, Charles Robert Leslie, and Edwin Landseer. Stylistically, his collection was dominated by the Romantic movement.

The National Gallery in London had been established in 1824 but initially only featured one work by a living British artist David Wilkie's The Village Holiday which was dominated by Old Masters. The newer Victoria and Albert Museum was constructed in South Kensington based on the profits of the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. Sheepshanks' gift to the nation was allocated to the newer establishment.he set a number of conditions, particularly that his paintings should be that "the public, and especially the working classes, should have the advantage of seeing the collection on Sunday afternoons". The donation included 336 paintings, drawing and sketches. It was housed in a suite of three rooms specially constructed to showcase the collection.

Gallery

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  The Refusal by David Wilkie, 1814
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  Boat-Building Near Flatford Mill by John Constable, 1815
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  Water Meadows near Salisbury by John Constable, 1820
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  The Dog and the Shadow by Edwin Landseer, 1821
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  Devotion by Margaret Sarah Carpenter, 1821
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  Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Grounds by John Constable, 1823
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  An Italian Contadina and Her Children by Charles Lock Eastlake, 1823
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  Hampstead Heath, Branch Hill Pond by John Constable, 1828
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  My Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman by Charles Robert Leslie, 1831
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  A Jack in Office by Edwin Landseer, 1833
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  Line Fishing, Off Hastings by J.M.W. Turner, 1835
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  The Stray Kitten by William Collins, 1835
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  Maria by Charles Landseer, 1836
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  Gathering Seaweed by Frederick Richard Lee, 1836
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  The Thames from Millbank by Richard Redgrave, 1836
• 
  The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner by Edwin Landseer, 1837
• 
  Sands near Boulogne by Clarkson Stanfield, 1838
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  Queen Victoria in Her Coronation Robes by Charles Robert Leslie, 1838
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  The Sonnet by William Mulready, 1839
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  The Rival Performers by John Calcott Horsley, 1839
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  Cinderella About to Try on the Glass Slipper by Richard Redgrave, 1842
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  The Gate of Metawaley by David Roberts, 1843
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  Seaford, Sussex by William Collins, 1844
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  Mr Honeywood Introduces the Bailiffs to Miss Richland as His Friends by William Powell Frith, 1850
• 
  Blackheath Park by William Mulready, 1852

See also

• Vernon Gift, an 1847 donation of British art to the National Gallery
• Turner Bequest, an 1851 donation enacted in 1856
• Jones Bequest, another major gift of artworks to the Victoria and Albert Museum

Bibliography

• Hamilton, James. A Strange Business:Making Art and Money in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Atlantic Books, 2014.
• Noon, Patrick & Bann, Stephen. Constable to Delacroix: British Art and the French Romantics. Tate, 2003.
• Roe, Sonia. Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Public Catalogue Foundation, 2008.
• Taylor, Brandon. Art for the Nation: Exhibitions and the London Public, 1747–2001. Manchester University Press, 1999.