The collector William Esdaile received a commercial education and was placed as a clerk with the well established City of London bankers Ladbrooke & Co. In 1781 he joined the new private bank founded by his father and Sir Benjamin Hammet, as Esdaile Hammet and Esdaile in Birchin Lane, City of London. Business prospered and Esdaile began to collect works of art under the guidance of two connoisseurs, the Revd Thomas Noble and John Thane, an engraver, printseller and expert on coins. Esdaile bought a house on Clapham Common, situated in park-like grounds, where he kept his expanding art collections. In a picture gallery, library and drawing rooms and on the staircases, he displayed paintings by Dürer, Ostade, Rubens, Jacob van Ruisdael, Salvator Rosa, Wilson and Gainsborough, framed drawings by G.B. Cipriani and Francesco Bartolozzi and Sèvres as well as Chelsea vases. He owned a number of Wilson drawings and the painting P153 Llyn Cau Cader Idris, Tate, London.
Collector's marks: Lugt 816 and 2617
