Dorothea Banks, Lady Banks (née Hugessen, 8 November 1758 – 1828) was an English heiress and collector of ceramics. Her collection of ceramics, which she displayed in the dairy of her home at Spring Grove, is recorded in her Dairy Book.[1] Like the ephemera collection of her sister-in-law Sarah Sophia Banks, it is informative about women collectors in the Georgian period.
Lady Banks | |
|---|---|
 Lady Banks painted by John Russell | |
| Born | Dorothea Hugessen 8 November 1758 |
| Died | 1828 |
| Spouse | Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet |
| Parent(s) | William Western Hugessen Thomazine Honywood |
Biography
editShe was born Dorothea Hugessen on 8 November 1758, one of two daughters of William Western Hugessen of Proveden, Kent, and his wife Thomazine, née Honywood, the daughter of Sir John Honywood.[2] She was a 'well-acred heiress' at the time of her marriage to scientist Sir Joseph Banks on 23 March 1779,[3] and she was described by Banks' colleague Daniel Solander as 'rather handsome, very agreable, chatty & laughs a good deal.'[4]
Art collection
editDorothea converted the dairy on their property at Spring Grove into an exhibition-house for her collection of ceramics. Banks said that she was 'a little old-china mad, but she wishes to mix as much reason with her madness as possible.'[5] She sought authentically Eastern pieces rather than those produced for the western market, and designed a classification system for them. In 1804 King George III and his family visited her collection, and she served him produce from the dairy on some of her china.[6]
The collection was sold at Christie’s in 1893 after the death of her great-nephew, who had inherited it, and found to contain Minton, Crown Derby, Sèvres, and Dresden ware as well as oriental pieces.[7]
Dorothea inherited the ephemera collection of her sister-in-law Sarah Sophia Banks, who lived with them, and donated it to the British Museum in her name.[8]
Lady Banks rose
edit
The Lady Banks rose, brought to Kew Gardens from China by William Kerr and cultivated by her husband, was named after her.[9]
References
edit- ^ Newport, Emma (2018). "The Fictility of Porcelain: Making and Shaping Meaning in Lady Dorothea Banks's "Dairy Book"". Eighteenth-Century Fiction. 31 (1): 117–142. doi:10.3138/ecf.31.1.117. ISSN 0840-6286.
- ^ Cokayne, George Edward (ed.). The Complete Baronetage. Vol. V. p. 211.
- ^ Gascoigne, John (2004). "Banks, Sir Joseph, baronet (1743–1820), naturalist and patron of science". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/1300. Retrieved 2024-03-27. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ Gascoigne, John (2003-12-18). Joseph Banks and the English Enlightenment: Useful Knowledge and Polite Culture. Cambridge University Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-521-54211-1.
- ^ Smith, Edward (1975). The Life of Sir Joseph Banks. Arno Press. pp. 272–3. ISBN 978-0-405-06618-4.
- ^ Leis, Arlene (2017). "'A Little Old-China Mad': Lady Dorothea Banks (1758-1828) and Her Dairy at Spring Grove". Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies. 40 (2): 199–221. doi:10.1111/1754-0208.12410. ISSN 1754-0194.
- ^ Leis, Arlene; Wills, Kacie L. (2020-08-31). Women and the Art and Science of Collecting in Eighteenth-Century Europe. Routledge. p. 1. ISBN 978-1-000-17522-6.
- ^ Russell, Gillian (2020-08-27). The Ephemeral Eighteenth-Century: Print, Sociability and the Cultures of Collecting. Cambridge University Press. p. 102. ISBN 978-1-108-48758-0.
- ^ Gribbin, Mary; Gribbin, John (2008). Flower Hunters. Oxford University Press. p. 103. ISBN 978-0-19-280718-2.