Thomas Banks - A list of Busts

Post in preparation.

Thomas Banks (1735 - 1805).

Sculptor.

A list of The Portrait Busts.

The numbers on the left refer to the list on the Online Version of -

A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, 1660-1851.

see -

http://liberty.henry-moore.org/henrymoore/works/recordlist.php?-skip=75&-max=25&-action=find&sculptor_id=119

A surprisingly large number have disappeared.

This list is not definitive - it does not include the self portrait bust illustrated in the September 1791 issue of the European Magazine.

55. - 1777. - Maria Walpole, Duchess of Gloucester.  Terracotta. Untraced.

56. - 1778. - Thomas Jones of Penkerrig, Radnor. Untraced.

57. - 1778. - Unidentified lady. Untraced.

58. - 1780. - Benjamin West, RA. Burlington House, London.

59. - 1781. - Robert Home, the artist. Untraced.

60.- 1783. - Head of a Majestic Beauty, composed on Mr [Alexander] Cozens principles’. Untraced.                 

61. - 1784. -  Maria Cosway. Untraced.

62. - 1785. - Sir Joseph Bankes. Untraced.

63. -  1785. - Sir Joshua Reynolds. Untraced.

64.- †1787. - Dr John Egerton, Bishop of Durham. Untraced.

65. -  †1788. - Johann Samuel Schroeter. Untraced.

66. - c. 1789  Mrs John Taylor Bust. Untraced.

67. - 1790 Warren Hastings (1st version).  Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London.

68. -  c1790 - Warren Hastings (2nd version, but draped all’antica). Untraced.

69. - 1790 -1791 -  Dr Anthony Addington. Private coll, USA.

70. - 1792 - ‘Master Cockerell in the character of Harpocrates’. Untraced.

71. - 1792 - Mrs Jane Johnes and Mariamne Johnes (two busts)(Jane Johnes only) Dolancothy, Llandilo, South Wales.

72. -  1794 - Unidentified lady. Untraced.

73. - 1796. - Anna Maria, Lady Lawley. Untraced.

74. - 1796. - Charles, 1st Marquess Cornwallis. Coll Major J Warde.

75. - 1796.. - Melpomene (Mrs Siddons). Untraced.

76. - 1796. - Sir Robert Lawley. Untraced.

76. - 1796.  -  Sir Robert Lawley. Untraced.

77. -  1798. -  Thomas Johnes. Untraced.

78. - pre-1799 -  Felix Vaughan (†1799). Untraced.

            

79. - pre-1800. - Dr John Warner (†1800). Untraced.

80. - 1800. - John Horne Tooke. Untraced

81. - 1803. - Miss Rose, daughter of George Rose. Untraced.

82. - 1800. - Oliver Cromwell Bust. Private coll, London.

83. - c.1804. - George Soane. Sir John Soane Museum. SC 69.

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The Undated Busts.

84. - No date. - General Martin (and another ‘when young’), Mrs Campbell, unidentified sitters, and Mr or Mrs ‘Palmer’ . Untraced.

85. -  No date. - Head of Agrippina. Untraced.                .            

86. - No date. - Prince of Wales, Governor Hollwell, Mary Wollstonecroft, [Thomas] Holcroft, Napoleon Bonaparte. Untraced

87.  no date. - Warren Hastings (3rd version, with drapery diagonal across the chest). Private coll, London.

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Thomas Muir Junior (1765 - 1798).
Transported for sedition.
Engraving of the (missing) Bust by Thomas Banks.
T Holloway (1748 - 1827).
10.8 x 8.89 cms.
1795.

Thomas Banks himself was arrested on suspicion of treason in 1794, with Pitt claiming he was “a violent democrat.” the description was repeated by Joseph Farrington.

He appeared before the Privy Council 10 am Saturday June 14 1794. He had admitted to having been a member of the Society for Constitutional Information, but that he had joined it for the "instruction he hoped to derive from it". 

He wasn't considered important enough to be formerly dismissed or acquitted or desirable to be taken into custody. see Annals of Thomas Banks, Bell, pub. Cambridge, 1938. pages 99, 100 and 102, where the subject is briefly mentioned.

Banks seems to have several very convenient lapses of memory!

As a descendent Bell seems to want to brush over this incident and any extremism of Banks but the evidence available is that he was much more radical than he pretended at this hearing

See also for a more in depth look at banks' politics - Living with the Royal Academy: Artistic Ideals and Experiences in England ...    edited by Professor John Barrell pub. 2013, page 131 -

Whilst he appeared to have got away with any prosecution I believe that his reputation was tainted ever after.

.................

Muir spent his life fighting for the rights of the poor and the oppressed. 

Encouraged by the Revolution in France, he pressed for parliamentary reform in Britain. 

In 1793 he was charged with sedition and sentenced to fourteen years exile in Botany Bay, Australia. Three years later Muir arranged his escape to America but he was arrested by the Spanish and badly injured when the ship he was on was attacked by the British. Assumed to be dead by the authorities, Muir reached Paris where he was treated as a great hero and martyr. 

In this engraving, beneath the image, there is a verse adapted from a poem by James Thomson. It begins: “Should fate command me to the farthest verge. Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes…”

Text and image courtesy Nation Galleries of Scotland.


https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/35842/thomas-muir-junior-huntershill-1765-1798-transported-sedition



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