A WEDGWOOD AND BENTLEY BLUE AND WHITE JASPERWARE PORTRAIT PLAQUE OF SIR JOSEPH BANKS CIRCA 1779

Sotheby Parke Bernet, Inc., New York, November 23, 1976, lot 52

Edwards, Ars Ceramica, 2019, no. 31, p. 48, fig. 2

A bill from John Flaxman for 'The Portrait of Mr. Banks modelled in Clay...2.2.O' is dated 21 August 1779 and it is thought this is probably is the portrait referred to by Josiah Wedgwood in a letter dated September 1779. Wedgwood says of the profile, '...as a good head, & a very strong likeness, but the original does not seem to have sat in an over pleasant mood.' See Robin Reilly and George Savage, Wedgwood, The Portrait Medallions, London, 1973, p.56 where a second example of Banks in this profile is in the British Museum, London, acc. no. 1887,0307,I.60.

Banks was a naturalist and President of the Royal Society from 1778. He received a prolonged correspondence from Sir William Hamilton on all matters of scientific interest relating to the Bay of Naples, and especially the activities of Mount Vesuvius. This plaque was made as one of the series of large portrait plaques of 'eminent moderns', which included: Hamilton; Robert Boyle (1627-91), the natural philosopher and chemist; Daniel Charles Solander (1736-82), the Swedish naturalist; Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), the American statesman; and Isaac Newton (1642-1727), natural philosopher and mathematician (this last was to form a pair with that of Dr Joseph Priestley (1733-1804). Banks, along with Solander were on Cook's first circumnavigation of the World.