File:The Mole at Ancona with Trajan’s arch RMG RP7553.jpg

English: The North Mole at Ancona with Trajan’s arch
This calotype probably reproduces the oil painting of the above title exhibited at the RA in 1845, though Stanfield also exhibited there two less specific and also untraced views of Ancona in 1840 and 1848. Either that of 1840 or 1845 was also exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1846 as 'Le Port d'Ancone vue du cote de l'Arc de Trajan' (no. 1647). All derived from his Italian tour of 1838-39. Another related one is in the V&A (exh. RA, 1851). There is no other record of this one and, despite its faded condition, this is an exceptionally early use of photography (of which Stanfield was very admiring) to record a work of art. It may be the earliest photo of a marine painting known. Though more research is needed (including confirmation of whether such a view of Ancona was among the few paintings Stanfield exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh) it may be by David Octavius Hill (1802-70) – with Robert Adamson a famous Scottish photographic pioneer – whom Stanfield knew well and from whom he had many other calotypes. Hill was also a painter and Secretary of the RSA, who regularly pressed London arists including Stanfield to send works to the annual Scottish exhibition. Stanfield's main Hill-Adamson volume, which is primarily of portraiture – is now in the US as part of the Gernsheim Collection at the Harry Ransom Centre, University of Texas at Austin. This item is from residual material from his studio, acquired 9.04 (Bagshawe Collection). [PvdM 5.06, updated 12.16]