Joshua Brookes

1 portrait

Joshua Brookes

by Thomas Phillips
oil on canvas, 1815
55 3/4 in. x 44 1/2 in. (1416 mm x 1130 mm)
Purchased, 1974
Primary Collection
NPG 5002

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Sitterback to top

Joshua Brookes (1761-1833), Anatomist. Sitter in 5 portraits.

Artistback to top

Thomas Phillips (1770-1845), Portrait painter. Artist associated with 215 portraits, Sitter in 4 portraits.

This portraitback to top

This portrait by Thomas Phillips of Joshua Brookes, the anatomist and founder of the Brookesian Museum of Comparative Anatomy, was painted 'by desire of the Students of Anatomy under his tuition'. In the course of forty years Brookes taught more than 5000 students at his school in Blenheim Street where the Brookesian Museum was housed. In the portrait Brookes is seated at a green-baize covered desk with an illustrated atlas of anatomy open before him and a quill in his hand. A large animal corpse is draped around the edge of the table and there is an animal embryo in this specimen jar on the shelf above him.