The London firm Maull & Polyblank
was a commercial portrait studio active from about 1850 to 1860 and specialized
in portraits of scholars, literati, and painters. A second-generation artist,
George Clarkson Stanfield (1828-1878) pursued a variety of painting genres:
landscape, seascape, and cityscape. He was a member of the Royal Academy of Art
and a student of his father, the landscapist William Clarkson Stanfield. With board
and paper propped on his knee and brush in hand, Stanfield appears to be
contemplating a potential subject for his watercolor while remaining completely
conscious of the photographer's camera. Artificial light sources had not yet been
introduced into photographic practice at mid-century, so the highlights
surrounding the painter are effected by subtly applying translucent paint
around the outside margins.