# Joseph Banks [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [WEST, Benjamin]() - Date: 1751-1800 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 234 x 160 cm ## Commentary Sir Joseph Banks \(1743-1820\) was a naturalist and patron of science. From an early age, his declared passion was natural history, and in particular, botany. He joined Captain Cook's 1768 expedition on the Endeavour to Tahiti for astronomical observations \(to observe the transit of Venus\). In West's portrait he wears a Maori cloak and stands beside other trophies from New Zealand and Polynesia, as if in rebuke of his more conventional contemporaries who were portrayed in Rome with their purchases of classical antiquities. ## Related artworks - [Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus]() - [Cupid Releasing Two Doves]() - [Edward III Crossing the Somme]() - [Musidora and her Two Companions]() - [Omnia Vincit Amor or The Power of Love in the Three Elements \(detail\)]() - [Omnia Vincit Amor or The Power of Love in the Three Elements]() - [Portrait of Colonel Guy Johnson]() - [Portrait of George, Prince of Wales, and Prince Frederick, later Duke of York]() - [Portrait of Prince William and His Elder Sister, Princess Sophia]() - [Self-Portrait]() - [The Battle of La Hogue]() - [The Burghers of Calais]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()