Thomas Banks was among the most innovative sculptors in late eighteenth-century Britain. He specialized in ambitious historical and mythological subjects but occasionally turned his hand to portrait busts with wholly original results. This arresting bust represents Dr. Anthony Addington, a physician who specialized in psychiatric disorders and who numbered King George III among his patients. It was commissioned posthumously by Addington’s son, Henry, and was made from a death mask taken shortly after Addington died. Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, a lifelong friend of Henry Addington, remarked that this bust was so lifelike it was “the only bust he could ever talk to.” Yet Banks suffered during the reactionary climate of the 1790s when Britain was at war with Revolutionary France. He was arrested on suspicion of treason in 1794, with Pitt claiming he was “a violent democrat.” His career never fully recovered. Gallery label for A Decade of Gifts and Acquisitions (Yale Center for British Art, 2017-06-01 - 2017-08-13)
