Between 1817 and 1845 Stephanoff exhibited at the Society of Painters in Water-Colours six large highly finished watercolours displaying in a didactic manner works of art largely taken from the collection of the British Museum. They were 1) The Connoisseur, exhibited 1817, no.288 (repr. Jenkins, 1985, fig.1 and 1992, colour pl.IX); 2) An Appartment containing the Phygalian, and a Selection of the Elgin Collection at the British Museum, exhibited 1818, no.354 (repr. Jenkins, 1985, fig.3); 3) Roman Antiquities from the British Museum, exhibited 1833, no.296 (untraced); 4) The Virtuoso, exhibited 1833, no.244 (repr. Jenkins, 1985, fig. 6); 5) A Museum, containing a Selection of some of the Antiquities brought from Xanthus, and now in the British Museum, exhibited 1843, no.50 (repr. Jenkins 1985, fig. 9, and 1992, fig.59); and 6) our picture, the catalogue entry on which continues, 'At the base of the picture are specimens of Hindu and Javanese sculpture, and on either side are the colossal figures and bas-reliefs from Copan and Palenque; those above them are from Persepolis and Babylon, followed by the Egyptian, Etruscan, and early Greek remains, and surmounted by the pediment from Aegina; bas-reliefs and fragments from Xanthus and Phygalia; the Theseus, Ceres and Latoma, the Fates, and other figures from the Parthenon; and terminating in a portion of the equestrian bas-relief of the Panathenaic procession in the Temple of Minerva'.
This magnificent work was formally identified as a watercolour by J.M. Gandy, said to have been exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1832, when the sculptures from Lycia were still in situ in Turkey. Jenkins suggests however that Gandy may have influenced Stephanoff in this work through his depiction of Thirteen Selected Styles of Architecture, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1836, and by its caption. Jenkins goes on to point out that Stephenoff is following contemporary evolutionary ideas on art, depicting the progress from the 'oriental' works in the lowest register to the perfection of classical Greece. In this he shows some affinity to, and probably knowledge of, Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Art, 1836, though Hegel saw a progression from Symbolic through Classic to Romantic art: Stephanoff carefully stops before Roman art. Certain chronological inexactitudes appear in the sequence. For example Archemenid reliefs appear before Egyptian sculpture, and the Nereids from Lycia before the Elgin Marbles (echoing the contemporary lay-out in the British Museum). The examples of Mayan sculpture were taken from a recent publication, John L. Stephen's Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, with engravings by F. Catherwood, but Stephanoff ignores Stephens's dating of Mayan culture at the time of the Spanish conquest and places his examples on his lowest register