Joseph Banks KCB (1743-1820), naturalist, was only 25 when he suggested to the council of the Royal Society that they recommend him for inclusion on the voyage of the Endeavour. With Daniel Solander, he collected hundreds of specimens of plants and animals of the South Seas, of which many are depicted in the volumes which have come to be known as Banks' Florilegium. Banks later became President of the Royal Society. His association with Australia continued after the voyage with Cook: he advised on the establishment of the first penal settlement; he was a patron of Matthew Flinders and others; and his keen interest in Australian natural history was sustained through correspondence with all the early governors of New South Wales.
Sir Thomas Lawrence RA, the leading European portrait painter of his generation, was much admired for his splendid representations of the elegance of the aristocracy.
Purchased with funds provided by the Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society Canberra 2000
Sir Thomas Lawrence (age 41 in 1810)
Anthony Cardon (age 38 in 1810)
Sir Joseph Banks KCB (age 67 in 1810)
Australian Decorative & Fine Arts Society Canberra Inc. (3 portraits supported)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
1 January 2015
In recent years I have become fascinated by the so-called Sydney Cove Medallion (1789), a work of art that bridges the 10,000-mile gap between the newly established penal settlement at Port Jackson and the beating heart of Enlightenment England.
1 September 2014
The caricaturist and engraver James Gillray's biting satires about Sir Joseph Banks.
