Museum’s Prize Winners give it their best shot!

Never before seen together since 1889 and after seven years of restoration work to remove over 120 years of dirt, oil and smoke, Worthing Museum and Art Gallery is very proud to unveil its newly hung pendant paintings, The Last Shot for the Queen’s Prize and Queens Prizemen by Sir Robert Ponsonby Staples (1853 – 1943).

After months of conservation preparation, planning and scaffolding, the oil on canvas, gold framed, multiple portraits finally hang together on permanent display in the first floor stairwell outside the Norwood Gallery.

The Last Shot had hung alone for many years since its companion was hidden away in the art store in a state of disrepair. Now, thanks mainly to the generosity of the Friends of Worthing Museum and Art Gallery, we are able to fully celebrate two of the key gifts bequeathed to us by the first Mayor of Worthing, and benefactor of this museum, Alfred Cortis.

Visitors to the museum can enjoy the original glory of these grand and large scale Victorian masterpieces, expertly restored by a number of different local professionals. While the more familiar Last Shot commemorates the final scene of the Queen’s Prize shooting competition at Wimbledon in 1887 – a crowded group portrait of those involved including the Prince and Princess of Wales, Edward and Alexander, and Alfred Cortis himself, the Queens Prizemen depicts, more unusually, 27 individual portraits of each prizeman arranged in a long, chronological line.

Laura Kidner, Curator of Art and Exhibitions commented:

There are a number of entertaining stories connected to these pictures which can be found on the labels displayed. However we know that the artist, Ponsonby Staples was an eccentric Irish baronet, nicknamed Wimbledon Staples after it took him 2 exhausting years to paint the works. He lived to 90 years of age believing that walking barefoot would prolong his life!

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