Sir Joseph Banks, Bt

This portraitback to top

Previously dated c.1806, to agree with the portrait Lawrence painted for the Royal Society, but NPG 853 shows a younger man and it probably shows Banks soon after he was made KB in 1795.

Referenceback to top

Garlick 1964
K. Garlick, ‘A Catalogue of the paintings, drawings and pastels of Sir Thomas Lawrence’, Walpole Society, XXXIX, 1964, p 213 (as probably c.1806).

Garlick 1989
K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence: a complete catalogue of the oil paintings, 1989, p 143.

Physical descriptionback to top

Wearing the ribbon of the Bath.

Provenanceback to top

Probably Lysons sale, Bruton, Knowles & Co, Gloucester, 21 April 1887, lot 321 (‘pencil sketch’), bought Colnaghi,¹ from whom purchased 1891.

¹ Martin Colnaghi told Scharf: ‘I purchased the Drawing of Sir Joseph Banks at a Sale in Cheltenham & with it a very beautiful Drawing by Lawrence of Mrs Siddons’ (11 December 1890; NPG archive).

Exhibitionsback to top

Cook's Voyage, Plymouth, 1968; Captain Cook, Sydney, 1970; Matthew Flinders, Museum of Lincolnshire Life, 1974; The Garden, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1979; Haydn, Eisensstadt, 1982 (624); Lawrence, New Haven, Fort Worth, Richmond, 1993 (42).


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, National Portrait Gallery, 2004, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

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