Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820), President of the Royal Society, Trustee of the British Museum

This 1806 portrait shows Joseph Banks, the British botanist who had presided over the Royal Society since 1778. Lawrence depicts him seated, with a bearing that conveys experience and authority, wearing the insignia of the Order of the Bath and placing beside him the ceremonial mace of the Royal Society, a symbol of the post he held. The overall effect stresses institutional standing rather than intimacy. Thomas Lawrence, born in Bristol and hailed as a child prodigy, became the most celebrated portraitist of the Regency era. The painting was shown at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1806 at Somerset House, and an engraving by the Belgian artist Antonie Cardon later spread the image widely. It entered the British Museum after Daniel Lysons donated it in 1819, and it remains a useful example of how science and official portraiture met in early nineteenth-century London.

Painter

Thomas Lawrence

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

127 × 102 cm

Museum

British Museum, London Borough of Camden

Genre

portrait

Depicts

Joseph Banks

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