William Dickinson (Artist), Joshua Reynolds (After)

Joseph Banks Esq.

Joseph Banks Esq. by William Dickinson, Joshua Reynolds

Artwork Detail

In 1772, the renowned British explorer and botanist Joseph Banks (1743-1820) sat to the eminent painter Sir Joshua Reynolds for his first portrait, now in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Not yet thirty, Banks was already a celebrity, having recently returned from his three-year voyage to the South Pacific with James Cook, visiting Brazil, Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia between 1768 and 1771. He appears in his study wearing a fur-trimmed coat seated at a table in the presence of a globe and some books, his closed fist weighing down a stack of letters on which can be read the inscription from Horace’s Odes, 1, 7: Cras ingens iterabimus aequor: `Tomorrow we set out over the vast sea', thought to be a reference to the fact that Banks had recently been invited to accompany Cook on a second voyage.

Reynolds’s oil painting of Banks was exhibited at the 5th annual exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1773. The London engraver William Dickinson, who had a close working relationship with Reynolds, produced a mezzotint engraving of the celebrated oil painting, dated 30 January 1774, from his printers’ addresses in Bond Street and Charing Cross, London.

Title
Joseph Banks Esq.
Artist/creator
William Dickinson, Joshua Reynolds
Production date
1774
Medium
mezzotint engraving, oil-based printing ink on laid paper, cream tone
Dimensions
504 x 357 mm
Credit line
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, bequest of John Lawford, 2023
Accession no
2023/14/2
Copyright
No known copyright restrictions
Department
International Art
Display status
Not on display

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